God is my Creator

 We are running our VBS program at our church this week and we are learning about the character and nature of God.  We saw on day 1 of VBS that God was our Creator and we belong to him.  I think that this is a foundational thought.  I think that because it is where God begins when revealing himself to us in His Word.  I think that because much of what we see in our world today is because of a failure to see ourselves as accountable to our Creator.  The word accountability may even be out of fashion in a world that wants us to center solely on ourselves.  But it is a truth that the Bible presents early and often - I have to do what God says because God made me and I belong to God.  But accountability is not the only issue.  

I think that we have lost a proper perspective on the center of our value.  We place our value in all the wrong places- in what we do, in what others think of us.  When in reality, we are valuable because we are created in the image of God.  And we as Christians often talk about the value of human life (and this has certainly been in the news lately) but then often devalue those that disagree with our positions.  We dehumanize those that disagree with the Bible and it makes it easier for us to dismiss them.  But we who hold that all are created by God in the image of God MUST admit that we should value the lives of those we argue most vehemently against because of the fact that they too have value and are made in God's image.  So we have accountability and value because of our creation.  But a third word comes to mind.

Dependence.  We strive against this from the time we are little and keep striving against it until we die.  We do not want to accept or admit that we need help, and yet our creation tells us that we are perpetually in a state of need.  A state in which we rely on our Creator to provide for us that which we cannot provide for ourselves - which points us to salvation in Jesus Christ.  

I wonder if you would consider your role as a created being today.  To whom are you accountable?  Where are you placing your value?  Are you acknowledging that you have need of things.  May God use your dependency to point you to Him.

1 Timothy 6:11-12

 "But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.  Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses."  1 Timothy 6:11-12

I am most interested in one thing for the purpose of this blog today - the movement.  Notice that we must flee from something.  You will have to go back into the earlier parts of 1 Timothy to figure out exactly all these things, but one of them is the love of money spoken about in verse 10.  But whatever all these things are we are to flee from them.  I think that we have to flee because on our own we would find ourselves in the midst of these things.  These things come naturally to us.  And so we are told to run away quickly from them.  You do not flee something casually, or carefully, you simply run away.  But we are also told to run toward something - movement.  We are to pursue 6 things.  And notice that pursuit implies chasing until they are caught.  And since these things (at least most of them) are demonstrable to not be caught until we are glorified, we will be pursuing them for a lifetime!  So do not give up - keep pursuing the things that God tells us to pursue!