3. Pursue Godliness
One of the things I enjoy most about traveling to many parts of the world is the privilege of knowing God’s greater family. I am amazed at the “family resemblance” that characterizes the children of God! Wherever we go, we meet people with the same motives, values, and responses. Often we can even communicate well with our eyes and our hearts where language barriers separate others.
When we respond to God’s call in our lives and begin to hunger and thirst after righteousness, a desire grows within our hearts to know God and to become like Him. This is where Paul’s exhortation continues for those who would be men and women of God. “Pursue godliness,” he tells us. Here the focus of our hearts is upon a hunger to become like our Father. Those who are Christ’s are identified by their likeness to their Father in heaven in every area of their lives. Godliness begins with a new creation. We cannot change ourselves. We are transformed by the life of Christ within us. When we come to know Christ, the persons that we once were are put to death, and God begins to mold the new creations we have become into the image of His Son.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
KNOWING GOD: THE KEY TO LIFE
When Jesus prayed His high priestly prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane just before He went to the cross, He said,
And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)
To Jesus, knowing God was the key to life. In chapter 2 we looked at the apostle Paul’s statement in Philippians 3, where he stated so clearly that all of his desire was “to know Him.” Knowing Christ was the central pursuit of Paul’s life as well.
When we read the Scriptures, it is clear that God’s purpose in His Word is to reveal Himself. We see in the Scriptures a continual revelation of God’s heart, mind, and purposes. From the beginning of the first chapters in Genesis through the closing chapters of His revelation to the apostle John, God is showing us who He is and what He is like. Through the Holy Scriptures we see how God responds to people who trust Him and to those who do not; we learn His perspectives on those who worship idols and those who make religious systems an end in themselves. In the Bible we see the Person of God because it is His nature to reveal Himself to us. His final, fullest revelation is His Son:
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, (Hebrews 1:1-3)
After centuries of giving his message through chosen, holy men, God expressed Himself fully and clearly through the giving of His own Son. Christ lived a life that radiated the very Person and character qualities of God because He was God in physical form. He told His disciples,
“If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:7-9)
Jesus had lived with His disciples now for over three years. They had watched Him respond to His Father, had listened to Him pray, and had seen Him give life to people. Yet, in spite of all this, so often they missed the point. Christ continued,
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.” (John 14:10-11)
Christ came as a vessel for the eternal life and power of His Father in heaven. The words that He spoke and the things that He did originated not from Him but from His Father. God was working out in the life of His Son those things that were pleasing to Himself. In fact, Jesus summarizes His life before His disciples: “It is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work.” Christ lived a life that enabled those who were watching to see the eternal God revealed in an understandable and receivable way. We can know God by knowing Christ. This is where that high calling of life begins, the very purpose for which God has brought us to Himself: Through knowing Christ, we become a means by which God reveals Himself in this world.
SEEING GOD: THE FOUNDATION FOR MINISTRY
Moses did not know God intimately for much of His life, and yet God called him for one of the most significant ministries the world has ever seen. The people of God had been slaves in Egypt for four hundred years. God was going to set them free, and Moses was the man He chose to use.
Moses was already an old man when God called him. He was a shepherd, having run from Egypt in fear for his life after he killed an Egyptian. Moses was filled with fear when one day, through a burning bush, God spoke to him:
And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. (Exodus 3:6)
This is where Moses began with God—afraid to see His face. When God calls a man or woman to know Him, He will fulfill all of His will and purpose in the life of that person. As Moses walked with God, a relationship filled with knowledge, intimacy, and freedom developed between this man and God. One day Moses came to God with what surely must have been the boldest request in all of history. He had just interceded for the people after their great sin of building the golden calf and worshiping it as the god who had delivered them out of their bondage in Egypt. Moses pleaded with God not to remove His presence from His people but to forgive them. God, in His great mercy and compassion, forgave His stubborn and rebellious people. Then Moses prayed,
“Please show me your glory.” (Exodus 33:18)
This man Moses, the one who was afraid to look at God at the burning bush, now asks God to permit him to see His face! God, however, chose to reveal His Person to Moses:
And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” (Exodus 33:19-20)
Because of God’s infinite holiness and the eternal nature of His life and Person, no one can see His face and live, but just as God showed His mercy to His wayward people, He allows Moses—this man who has come to know Him as so few have known Him since time began—to see His heart anew. Moses wanted to see God’s face, but God revealed to him His Person. What God chose to reveal to Moses—who He is, what He is like, and how He gives Himself to people—was surely the most important thing for Moses to see. God knows that it is the revelation of His Person within the hearts of men and women that will become the framework for all of their lives and the foundation for all of the ministry that He will fulfill through them. Now God shows Moses His mercy even more fully:
And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 33:21-23)
Oh, the depths of God’s compassion! Even though Moses could not see His face, in His heart of mercy, He allowed Moses to see His glory as He passed by while Moses was hidden in the hollow of the rock.
God will put within our hearts a desire to know Him. Just as He did with Moses, He will reveal to us—by His Word and His Spirit, through His own Son—who He is, what He is like, and how He gives Himself to people. All of our lives as men and women will flow out of how we see God. If our view of God is not right, our lives will not be right. All our thoughts, actions, words, values, priorities and choices will be a direct result of how we see God. That is why knowing God is the only valuable pursuit of our lives, the only worthy goal of our hearts.
As we discussed earlier, Christianity is not a religion of the mind. It is a relationship with the living God through His Son, Jesus Christ. In this relationship, God begins a miraculous transformation of our hearts in which He makes us like Himself.
WHAT DOES A MAN OR WOMAN OF GOD LOOK LIKE?
The Scriptures, written in an Eastern style, use visual language. Word pictures fill the pages of our Bibles. We see that clearly in the first Psalm:
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; (Psalm 1:1)
So often the Word of God tells us that blessings follow a positive act of obedience. Here, the Scriptures tell us that we will be blessed because of what we do not do.
The person God blesses does not share the mind-set of the people in the world around him. A godly man or woman neither moves in the same direction as those in rebellion against God nor takes his or her place among the cynics. The life pictured in Psalm 1 is a life consumed not with this system but with God:
But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:2)
In contrast to a dissipated life and a hardened heart, a man or woman of God hungers for Him and the words He speaks. He delights in the Lord! There is a desire to obey Him and to please Him in every way. The Scriptures fill the mind of this man or woman, and he or she finds deep enjoyment in the things of God.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:3)
What a visual description of a life rooted in God: “He is like a tree.” Immediately we can picture the strength and stability of this person and the depths to which his roots are buried in the very source of life. There is success and an enduring quality in everything that he does and fruitfulness in abundance when God calls for fruit.
The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. (Psalm 1:4)
In contrast to the righteous, who are strong, stable, and fruitful, the wicked are blown away by the wind. The difference in the two lives is that of substance. The chaff is the filmy, flimsy outer covering of the grain that the wind blows away in the threshing process. The wicked, too, are carried away by the wind because there is nothing to them. They are empty:
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; (Psalm 1:5)
Only those things that are substantial will be able to stand in eternity. Everything else will be shaken and removed or burned away. The wicked will be consumed with the rest of this world because there is no eternal substance to them. God builds into us the substance of eternity by means of His Word and His Spirit as we seek after Him.
For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1:6)
God not only knows the righteous, He also knows their way. He watches over their way in order to keep them. Those things that pour forth from our lives also live in eternity. Not only do the wicked perish; all of their ways perish as well. All that they have done and everything of who they are will come to nothing.
In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis tells the story of a group of people who take a trip from hell to the outskirts of heaven. When they are in hell they see themselves as real and substantial people. But the closer they get to heaven, it is revealed that they are filmy, shadowy persons with no substance at all.
When they get close to heaven, their bus passes a tree that is producing golden apples. Some of the apples have fallen to the ground. Everyone on the bus has the same idea at the same time. If they can take some of those golden apples back to hell where they will be of great value, they can be sold for much gain. God has a wonderful sense of humor. What we sell our souls for every day in this world is so common in heaven that Revelation 21:21 tells us the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem are paved with it!
The bus is stopped. The people on the bus try to walk to the tree to pick up some of the apples, but they cannot walk on the grass. The grass hurts their feet. The things in God’s eternal Kingdom are made of substance, but these people are only shadows. Although some of them finally make their way over to the tree and try to pick up one of the golden apples that had fallen to the ground, they cannot pick it up because it has substance and they are only filmy persons of no substance to their lives.1
I was once at a church teaching an Inductive workshop. Those who attend these workshops spend a good bit of time in personal study and also in group sharing. During the first study time I noticed a man just staring at his Bible and not working at all with the study sheets. During the next break I went to him to see if I could help. He told me that he was doing all right. He explained that he had just become a Christian the week before and knew nothing about the Bible. His desire was to just read the Bible with us, listen to the others share what God was teaching them, and then work on the study later in his office.
On the last day of the workshop, I taught from Psalm 1 as we have studied it here. I also quoted from Psalm 19, where David says that God’s words “are more precious than gold, than much pure gold.” Again, during the first study time of the day, I looked over to him and saw that he was not working on the method we were using. He was sitting there weeping. I again asked if I could be of assistance. Although he assured me he was really doing all right, he told me he was thinking a lot about what the Scriptures were saying, and they were affecting him deeply.
He told me that he was a builder, primarily of private family homes. His business was quite successful, but two families had not paid him for his work. These families had both been overwhelmed with medical bills and had lost family income; they were struggling to maintain their existence. They had paid what they could on the construction costs but were now far behind. The builder felt that he had given them as much time as possible and could not go along with them any further. Just about ten days before, he had instituted proceedings against them, preparing to foreclose on their homes in order to recover his loss.
As he sat there weeping, he said, “All of this ‘Christianity’ is so new to me. I know I hardly understand it at all. I feel confused with all of these details from the Bible. But I believe God is speaking to me. If I am understanding anything at all about the difference between what is of this world and what is eternal, and if I am hearing right about how God wants us to pursue Him and His Word above gold, I believe that what I need to do is put that into practice. The first thing Monday morning, I am going in and remove those lawsuits from these families and see how I can work with them in this difficult time.”
My heart was overwhelmed! I know people who have been Christians for twenty years who do not have the depth to make choices like that! That is what a man or woman of God looks like. When God builds His heart into us, we share His values, His perspectives, His motives, and His responses. We see as He sees, and we pursue what is eternal. This is the miracle of the new creation. God is actually making us like Himself, and we begin to resemble Him in our character, our attitudes, and our desires.
JESUS’ NAZARETH MANIFESTO
We can know God and become like Him only through the transforming, creative resource of the life of Christ within us. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27) is all of the Christian’s life! Jesus came to reveal the Father and to redeem us to God. He then fills us with His life to enable us to walk in holiness, power, and fruitfulness.
Godliness is the process of becoming like our Father. It is His heart coming alive in us and pouring out through us. To walk responsively with God in this transformation process, we must ask ourselves, What are those things that fill the heart of God? If we could peer into His open heart, what would we see? That is precisely what we see God revealing in the Scriptures and in the life of His Son. Jesus is a visual revelation of the heart of our Father and the life-giving source by which we are eternally transformed.
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. (Luke 4:14-15)
Earlier we studied the temptation of Christ in the wilderness from Matthew 4. Luke has just recorded that incident as we come to this passage in which Jesus returns to Galilee empowered by the Holy Spirit. There is great affirmation for His ministry and a great response to Him personally:
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:16-19)
Jesus is declaring the purpose of His mission! At the beginning of His ministry, He is revealing those things that He will fulfill and to whom His life will be given. The source of His ministry will be the Spirit of God. In the fullness of God’s timing, His life will bring hope, freedom, sight, and vindication to those who have lived in pain.
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. (Luke 4:20)
This Scripture was written by the prophet Isaiah some seven hundred years before Jesus was born. Now God will fulfill through His Son the desires that have filled His heart throughout the history of His people.
As Jesus declares the purposes of His coming, it is clear that these purposes center around the poor and the oppressed. When we see His life and ministry revealed in the gospels, we see that these are the ones to whom He reached out. The downtrodden and the sick, the forgotten, and the poor welcomed Him even as the religious leaders withdrew from Him. The Lord Jesus had a beautiful freedom to touch the sick and embrace the sinner, to open Himself to the rejected and to be received by the humble and the least.
From the beginning of His revelation in the Scriptures to the fullness of His revelation in His Son, it is abundantly evident that God has a heart for hurting people. When our Father builds His heart into us, He will give us a heart that reaches out to those in pain.
STREAMS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AND JUSTICE
The pursuit of righteousness includes not only a right relationship with God, it also results in right relationships with people. In God’s eyes, right relationships can be built only on mercy, righteousness, and justice.
The book of Amos is a strongly prophetic message. We saw earlier that God had confronted Israel about worshiping Him with their lips when their hearts were far from Him. We see the same rebuke in Amos’s prophecy. The people to whom this book was written were very religious people, yet their lifestyle was far from the heart of God:
Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?” (Amos 8:4-6)
The people of Israel were maintaining all of their religious rituals with great fervor while using the needy to maintain their lifestyle. In fact, they were reducing the poor to commodities, to persons possessing only the value of things. The poor were equated with money and the needy with a pair of shoes.
This is a graphic description. We can visualize these very religious people looking upon the poor and immediately seeing past the helplessness of their condition to all that could be gained through them with the offer of a little silver and a pair of sandals. That is the way it is in the world in which we live. God has called us to love people and has given us things to use in the process of serving them. Apart from God, however, we love things and use people to fulfill our own desires.
God hates that selfishness. He continually pours out His life for the just and the unjust. He expects His people to be givers also, rather than users and takers.
I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:21-24)
A WORLD OF HURTING PEOPLE
Among the many billions of people living on planet Earth, almost one out of four is absolutely poor and destitute. One out of five is always hungry. Some time ago the thirty-seven poorest nations in the world cut their funding for health care by 50 percent and their funding for education by 25 percent in order to pay the interest on their loans from the West. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is becoming wider every day.
Each day many children in the developing world lose their sight for lack of a vitamin pill that would cost only a few cents. We can travel to many countries in this world and see millions living in shanty towns, on garbage heaps, and in the streets. There is no home or shelter available to them. Even in the inner cities of our developed countries many are homeless, left alone in nursing homes, or overwhelmed by the pain of their circumstances. All over the world there are orphans who need homes where they can experience God’s healing love. Jesus reached out to these people, building for them a shelter in the acceptance and warmth of His love. God expects us to shelter hurting people in His love as He leads and enables us.
MERCY GIVEN AND MERCY RECEIVED
Through Amos God confronted His people concerning their feasts, their assemblies, and their offerings. Through the prophet Isaiah, He confronted them about another religious activity—fasting:
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (Isaiah 58:6-7)
There is another kind of fasting besides fasting that involves going without food or drink. It is the kind of fasting that disciplines oneself to reach out to the impoverished, the oppressed, and the hungry. It is an act of compassion that shelters the needy with the love of God.
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, “Here I am.” If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, (Isaiah 58:8-9)
This is a wonderful promise from the Word of God! When we respond with His heart toward hurting people, our own darkness is removed; His healing touches us. We will know not only His righteousness but also His mercy and His presence. His glory will surround us. We will also know His power in prayer, and God Himself will be our deliverer.
if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. (Isaiah 58:10)
For some of us, it is comparatively easy to write a check or to give a small donation for the poor and the hungry. In many ways these acts of charity do not really cost us anything. But God calls us to end oppression and the gossip that destroys lives and to spend ourselves for the sake of the hungry. This call is consistent with the exhortation of the apostle John when he tells us that love means “laying down our lives” (1 John 3:16). In this world we protect ourselves, we build ourselves up; in the Kingdom of God, we spend ourselves.
And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in. (Isaiah 58:11-12)
When we respond with the heart of God toward hurting people, He gives us His direction and His strength. He causes our own lives to be fruitful, and He brings restoration to His people. He raises us up as rebuilders. How the people of God need these things today! As we cry out to Him for wisdom, power, blessing, and revival, may He open our eyes to see the relationship between our responses to hurting people and His provision for our own desperate needs.
AN ETERNAL INVITATION
Jesus’ teaching to His disciples continually underscored the heart of the Father toward people in pain:
He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid.” (Luke 14:12)
We tend to surround ourselves with people who are just like us, those who affirm us and build us up. In doing this, we isolate ourselves from the real world filled with people who bear more pain than anyone can handle alone. Jesus turned the hearts of His followers outward toward those who are in need and often alone:
“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:13-14)
God can give us a vision for payment that goes beyond this system. We do not live for ourselves as we are preparing for eternity. God teaches us in His Word and in the model of His Son to be givers. There is a reward in eternity for those whose focus goes beyond themselves and their own desires.
When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” (Luke 14:15)
As Jesus touched on eternal rewards, one of the men at the luncheon He was attending began to talk about the heavenly feast that God is preparing for us in His Kingdom. Jesus used this as an opportunity to talk further about the banquet prepared by our Father and the invitations He has sent:
But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’” (Luke 14:16-17)
In His Nazareth Manifesto, Jesus said that He had come to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Now is the time for God’s invitation to be sent out for the banquet He has prepared. In the provision of His Son, everything is now ready.
“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’” (Luke 14:18-20)
The excuses began to pour in quickly. These are life’s responsibilities, investments, and relationships that steal away people’s responsiveness to God. Human hearts are so vulnerable to the call of the world and to the voice of the enemy. There will always be another time, in the minds of those consumed with this system, to respond to God’s call.
“So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’” (Luke 14:21)
When the master’s servant reported the disinterest on the part of those who had been invited and how little they valued the banquet that was prepared, the master was filled with anger. However, he did not give up his vision for the banquet he had prepared. Instead he instructed his servant to go out once more, this time bringing in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. Surely, these are the ones who would not be invited to most banquets along with the important people of this world.
“And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.’” (Luke 14:22-23)
After the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame were invited and still there was room at the banquet, the servant was sent out once again to search out the highways and the byways of this world. These are the places, perhaps, where the basest people of this world, even the outcasts, would be found. The master’s consuming desire for his house to be filled continually motivated the opening of invitations to the banquet. The more the invitations were given, the more they focused on the hurting of this world.
As I read this portion of Scripture, two things grip my own heart: First, I know that I was one of the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame that God has invited to His feast. It was His mercy that kept Him searching for me, His grace that included me. There was nothing that I could bring to His banquet that would cause Him to invite me. I am humbled with this realization, and I love Him more.
The second thing that fills me with wonder is the Master’s consuming desire for His house to be filled. God has continued to send out invitations for the feast that He is preparing, and these invitations have gone to the far corners of the earth. Someday those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation will gather before God, and they will feast with Him in His glory and in His eternal Kingdom. The free offer of the gospel remains today for all men and women, and He has entrusted the invitations to this banquet to you and me.
TRUST THE LORD OF THE HARVEST AND WALK IN OBEDIENCE
When we see the great needs of the poor and destitute, the imprisoned of this world, the pain and emptiness with which they live, it is easy for our hearts to become overwhelmed. Then we see the multitudes that do not know the grace and the mercy of God, who are without salvation, and our hearts cry out, “What can I do?” We receive more and more information about the millions who remain cut off from the gospel by cultural and language barriers, and we lose hope that the invitations to God’s eternal banquet could ever be sent in a receivable way.
It is Satan’s desire that our hearts become overwhelmed and that we lose heart when we see the needs of hurting people and the greatness of the task in communicating the gospel. If our enemy can overwhelm us and cause us to lose heart, we will become immobilized. We must always remember that our sovereign God is the Lord of the harvest. He brings to pass what pleases Him and fulfills all of His will. He is the One most filled with compassion at the pain that devastates the hearts of people. He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.
We are not sufficient to meet the needs of hurting people around us or to bring healing to a pain-filled world. We are not adequate to deliver the invitations to everyone who must hear. But all of us can do something. As God opens our eyes to see needs and as He enables us, we can respond to someone in pain. We can give to a relief agency in order to feed the hungry. We can adopt an orphan in the developing world. We can volunteer for the missions committee at our church. We can send our children on short-term missions trips to stimulate their vision and capture their hearts for the Kingdom of God. We can volunteer at a hospice center or a nursing home and touch people in God’s name with His comfort and His love. We can go to the mission field ourselves and serve for a few weeks or months. We can cover our refrigerator doors with the “prayer cards” of missionaries and support and encourage them. We can give of our finances. We can pray that the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers. We can—we must—listen to our Father’s heart, and as He leads us, become involved in some way in the eternal work He is doing in the world.
GOD IS AT THE CENTER OF GOD’S HEART
When we talk about godliness and see that the heart of God is filled with a desire to heal the pain of hurting people, to comfort the afflicted and to vindicate the downtrodden, we know that the scriptural picture is clear in this area. We realize, too, as we have studied, that God’s heart yearns for His house to be filled, for the message of His mercy and the good news of life in His Son to be given to all men and women. We make a great mistake, though, if we think that the heart of God is man centered. The heart of God does not move outward. It moves inward and finds His own attributes at its center. His heart then beautifully and wonderfully overflows in His love, mercy, compassion, and justice toward us and brings healing and redemption.
God revealed this great truth to Isaiah when He called him to be a prophet to His hurting people:
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:1-3)
The angels that surround the throne of God are captivated by His holiness and His glory. Their eyes are filled by this vision when they see Him, and it becomes their message to Him, to one another, and to us. The purity of God’s Person and the radiance of His presence fill the angels with awe and wonder. God will capture the heart of Isaiah with this same vision of His holiness and His glory.
The holiness of God is the epitome of His Person, and His glory is His own greatest treasure. These are at the center of His heart and motivate the pouring out of His life to display His mercy and His grace. Thus it will be with you and me. When the holiness of God and His glory fill the center of our hearts, we are transformed. We desire to worship Him, we hunger more and more to be like Him, and we become vessels through whom He will pour forth His life and display His splendor within this world.
GROUP STUDY GUIDE AND PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. Do you see your walk with the Lord characterized by a growing desire to become like Him? How do you see your attitudes and responses changing as you are being conformed to the image of Christ?
2. What is your view of God like? How do you think your life would change if you had a bigger view of God?
3. Paul desired to “know Christ,” and Moses hungered to “see God’s face.” What has kept you from that same passionate hunger?
4. Look again at the priorities Jesus described in His “Nazareth Manifesto” recorded in Luke 4. Do these priorities surprise you? How are they different from yours?
5. Why do you think we in God’s Church have so much difficulty responding to the poor with the heart of God?
6. What would change in our churches if we pursued the same commitment to justice that we see in the Lord Jesus and the prophets?
7. What tools do you see our enemy using to blind our eyes to the pain of the poor? Do you really believe that these things can change in our lives?
8. When you read the parable of the banquet, what comes to your mind about the dinners and celebrations that you have attended? How would knowing the heart of God change the way we see people?
9. How do you respond to the statement that “God is at the center of God’s heart”? Do you think we have focused on a man-centered gospel at the expense of the glory of God? How can we pursue the glory of God with all our hearts and still focus on the needs of the poor and the hurting?
10. Describe in a few words how the study in this chapter might affect our evangelism strategies.
REFLECTIONS, COMMITMENTS, AND PRAYER
Have you given much thought to whether your heart is like the heart of God? That is what this chapter is all about. When God builds His heart into us, everything changes! We see Him differently; we begin to hunger for Him and to be like Him. The priorities that change are the result of changed passions. As you pray, talk to God about how you have seen people differently from the way He sees people. Ask Him to give you an expanded vision of Himself and the ability to see people through His eyes. Pray, too, that God will motivate you with His love to give yourself to preparing for His great banquet feast and will orient your life to inviting the lost and the hurting to His house!
1 C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, (New York: The MacMillian Company, 1946).
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
Hebrews 1:1