Devotions Archive Archive: 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 Search Archive Print This Article Big fish in a big pond Thursday, March 29, 2001 John 5:31-47 Jesus says, "How can you believe if you will accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?" Two things happen when I turn my face toward heaven. I notice that I'm not as tall as I thought I was, and I see that the sun never stops shining down on me. Clouds and sunsets notwithstanding, the sun returns. The sky is high. And God's standards for my life are higher still. The lists of laws we write only scratch the surface of this standard. God expects me to live the way he made me, conscious, obedient, creative, individual part of his community, thoughtless about myself. Like a bird or a flower or a lamb, not "trying," just being "me." I can only catch a glimpse of this standard. It is actually obscured by the laws we've written. God's praise is not available to me if I focus on these laws. Even if I keep them all I am betrayed by my own pride. Paul wrote, "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? ... If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Galatians 1:10). In his book The Search for Significance, Robert McGee describes four false beliefs that ruin our lives. Two of them say, "I must meet the approval of certain others to feel good about myself, " and "Those who fail (including myself) are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished." When I think this way (and I do), I am filled with poison. God's antidote?    1 John 4:9-12: This is how God showed his love among us:   He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love:   not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. I discover God's praise in my confession, not in my righteousness. His praise completes me; it's unconditional by definition. My "significance" is assured, and then I am truly "now free to move about the country." Lord, the glimpses I get of the way we were made to live make me dizzy with joy. I am not a human "doing." Thank you for freeing me to be. "; Add      Edit    Delete