God is not the path

So I attended Vertical on Monday night. It has been a joy over the last year to have that worship service to attend, where I have absolutely no responsibilities and I can just sit and worship God and get poured into. This past Monday Afshin was talking about Abraham and he said something during the course of his message that stuck with me and God has been speaking in my life ever since.

God is the reward.

It seems simple enough. God is the reward. God is enough in this life. Yet we don't seem to act that way too often. You see, life has become about us. We have become me centered rather than Christocentric. In our personal lives. In our private lives. Even in the sermons of our preachers, everything has become about us. How we can have a great and amazing life. How God is just waiting for us to believe in Him so that He can in turn bless us with monetary gain. With the possessions of the world that we want. With everything that we have asked for in His name because scripture tells us that everything we ask for in His name we will receive.

It's bs.

You see God is not the path to the life that we have always wanted. God is not the means to an end. God is not the stepping stone on the way to higher pleasures of this life. God is the reward. God is the end. God is the purpose. The reason. The finish line, the thing we are striving towards.

I am tired of seeing God used as leverage in some ploy to "bring souls to Christ." To provide the proper incentive for someone to walk the aisle and become another name in our church directory. God is so much more than that. God deserves so much more than that.

The real kicker of course is that we cannot give Him those things that He truly deserves. Not in actuality. You see, Isaiah tells us that all of our great and righteous works are nothing but filthy rags compared to the greatness of God. So we can't give Him what He deserves. So what is the response then? To use Him in whatever twisted way we see fit to gain whatever we feel we are privileged enough to receive?

Pardon my French, but hell no.

You see, Hebrews 11 tells us that though the world was not worthy of those that were martyred for their faith in the days of scripture, that we have been given something greater than them and that the promises of God will be fulfilled in us.

You see we were created to do our best to bring glory to God. To exalt His name with our lives. And God is the path to exalting His name with glory because apart from Him we are incapable of doing so. But God is not the path to gaining everything that our profane heart desires.

God is the path to God. And nowhere else.

Pastor Mama Coco