Monday, December 8, 2008

"It's not about you."

“It’s not about you.”
The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, making a name for yourself, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God.” (Rick Warren)
So, right in the middle of Psalm 23, we find a powerful phrase, “for His name’s sake.” Other translations put it like this:
“bringing honor to his name” NLT
“for the sake of his reputation” The NET Bible
“for the good of his name” New Century Version

Even though God made you to love you, and He does enough that He died for you; life is still not about you. Life is all about God.

I have come to this point in my life where I look at people who just DON’T GET IT! They are so stuck on themselves that they can’t put there pride aside and see that God is SOO much bigger then all of the crap going on in their lives. Now I am not saying that life does not get hard in fact I would be the first to admit that I have gone through some pretty rough times. But I can also say that I have NEVER let my pride bring me to a point where I have stopped seek after my Father…

Pride is the only disease that makes everyone sick but the one who has it.

God is to be glorified because He has done awesome things, because He just is awesome, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise, creator, giver, sustainer…..and the list goes on. Because you bear His name, because you have benefited from His power, His provision, His forgiveness, you will want above all else to live to the praise and glory of His name.
So the reason God takes the credit, is because He deserves it, because He knows that His glory brings us satisfaction – because we bear His name. The other reason He takes the glory is because He knows we can’t handle it. We aren’t content with a little bite of praise; we tend to swallow it. It messes with our system. The praise swells our head and shrinks our brains, and pretty soon we think we had something to do with our survival. Pretty soon we forget we were made out of dirt and rescued from sin.

We may be the canvas, the scalpel, the tool, or the instrument, but we are not the ones who deserve the applause. The shepherd leads the sheep, not for our name’s sake, but “for His name’s sake.”

God made you to love you. He gave up everything for you. Yet it is His name, His glory that He is most concerned about. In everything He does, His purpose is to preserve and display His glory. Why does God have anything to do with us? For His name’s sake. So does God have an ego problem? No, but we do.

He is already worthy of all praise and adoration and exaltation. Before He created anything, He lived in complete fulfillment and perfection. Yet He chose to make us and everything we see around us. He takes the credit for the things He does because He is worthy. And He knows that when we live for His praise and glory, we are most satisfied and fulfilled.

So take a moment…YEAH YOU! Take one FRICKIN moment and realize that “IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU” That God knew your name before you were born he understands that your life is going to be filled with hills and valleys and we should be thankful that HE CHOSE US!

During this time of the year where so many of us are stuck in our circumstances that we even forget the reason for the season. We are overwhelmed with where we are in life that we forget “It’s not about us”…It’s about him. And in order for us to really fully comprehend that we need to put our pride aside. He came to this earth to rescue us not the other way around... Remember that when you feel you can handle everything on your own... "It's not about you."