GOD-CENTEREDNESS
The proper
understanding of everything in life begins with God. No one will ever
understand the necessity of conversion who does not know why God created us. He
created us "in His image" so that we would image forth his glory in
the world. We were made to be prisms refracting the light of God's glory into
all of life. Why God should want to give us a share in shining with His glory
is a great mystery. Call it grace or mercy or love – it is an unspeakable
wonder. Once we were not. Then we existed – for the glory of God!
Desiring God, Bethlehem Baptist Church, p. 55, used by permission,
www.desiringGOD.org.
All
the believer’s
life and all the church's life requires theocentric
thinking. The tragedy is that were someone to hear our thoughts and words in
our dangers and troubles they would never guess that we had a living God.
Dale Ralph Davis
1 Samuel, Focus, 1988, p. 184. Used by
Permission.
In space,
astronauts experience the misery of having no reference point, no force that
draws them to the center. Where there is no "moral gravity" – that
is, no force that draws us to the center – there is spiritual weightlessness.
We float on feelings that will carry us where we were never meant to go; we
bubble with emotional experiences that we often take for spiritual ones; and we
are puffed up with pride. Instead of seriousness, there is foolishness. Instead of gravity, flippancy. Sentimentality takes the
place of theology. Our reference point will never serve to keep our feet on
solid rock. Our reference point, until we answer God's call, is merely
ourselves. We cannot possibly tell which end is up.
Elizabeth Elliot
I once read
the following definition of a fanatic: "A fanatic is a person who, having
lost sight of his goal, redoubles his effort to get
there." The fanatic runs around frantically getting nowhere. He is a
basketball player without a basket, a tennis player without a net, a golfer
without a green. For a Christian to make progress in...
learning to please God, he must have a clear idea of
what his goal is… Jesus stated it this way: “Seek first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”
R.C. Sproul
Pleasing God. Christianity
Today, v. 34, n. 9.
We are called
by God to do theology, that is, to live our lives with a
moment-by-moment consciousness of God.
Paul David Tripp
Age of Opportunity, P&R
Publishing, 1997, p. 54-55, Used by Permission.
Blessed are
the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy much peace… If you refuse to be
hurried and pressed, if you stay your soul on God, nothing can keep you from
that clearness of spirit which is life and peace. In that stillness you know what His will is.
Amy Carmichael
Our only hope
is to return to the God of the Scriptures and the truth that the center of all
meaning in life is not ourselves but God. God is the
center of the universe and the essence of all wisdom and all truth. The purpose
of life derives from God’s desire to see His own glory and behold His own
beauty. Thus it is time for Christians to be called back to the truth that the
meaning of life is to be found in “the glory of God alone.”
John Hannah
To God be the Glory,
Crossway, 2000, p. 22.