of/from/for Me (substitute your name)! I’m talking specifically not intellectually or even spiritually. We all, at some time, ask this question – and I believe every serious Christian asks this… often. We all want to be pleasing to God. I know one can quote Micah (6:8)
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord
require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to
walk humbly with your God?”
In fact I’ve written about justice, kindness and humility previously because these ideas, behaviors are always important. But what does this mean, specifically, for you and me? What does it look like? What’s required? We all need the confidence that we are doing what God wants for/from us. We all need to be able to identify, operationally, what this is – personally – and how we do ‘it’.
It’s not an easy question to answer, and to complicate it further, how this looks for one person may not look exactly the same for another – conceptually, yes, but operationally, not necessarily because we all need to personalize this. Another point is – given this, do we all have the same definitions of those 3 words and behaviors? Because this is the beginning of understanding and specificity. Again, conceptually these words have the same definitions but operationally, it depends on us: who we are, what we understand, our world, how we are growing in this, and our particular gifting to the world. My discoveries and journey has led me to the following as a foundation for what I believe God wants and how I operationalize (new word?) it.
I believe that one component in this quest of discovery and understanding is praise and worship. This can be expressed in whatever way and however you express your worship – writing, speaking, singing, dancing, etc. The point is the expression and, my bias, that we do this daily, not only when we gather as a body for fellowship. I don’t believe that the particular expression is at issue, it’s the frequency of the act. How does praise and worship relate to… do justice, love kindness, and walking humbly with the Lord? It’s in the development of our character, the prevailing attitudes that demonstrate our relating. It also gives a context to praise and worship.
Another discovery led me to prayer as part of the foundation for the operationalization (another new word?). You may think this an obvious component but again, the expression is the point. Prayer is communication in my world of definitions. However you define prayer… do you engage in it? Is this a daily ‘activity’? Why? What’s your context? How do you go about the process of praying?
I suspect we all realize the importance of prayer intellectually and we’ve read about ‘it’ in scripture, but have you personalized prayer? The light bulb went off for me when I started to see how often Jesus went off to pray, to communicate with the Father, to be with Him. My understanding broaden with the realization that if the Lord did this as often as He did, how much more important it was that I do this. This is an offensive ‘weapon’ in our spiritual warfare battles. If it isn’t then we go into battle with one arm tied behind our backs.
Prayer places us in direct communication with the Lord at/in the moment. But I don’t believe we should only go to Him in times of peril, crisis, or desperate need. He gave us the opportunity to ‘come boldly to the throne’ (Hebrews 4:16) and he provided us with the key to this when he put us in relationship. We never did or could earn righteousness – He made us to be righteous (Romans 3:22, Ephesians 2:4-10, 2 Corinthians 5:17-(21) so we could be in relationship. Jesus knew how difficult it would be for us so He provided the way (Hebrews 4:14-15, 9:15, 10:14, etc.) which is faith, the person – who is Jesus, and the method – which is relationship. Relationship is both vertical and horizontal. Our relationships with others is vitally important. How we treat them, especially our brothers and sisters in the Lord (John 13:35), speaks volumes to those watching.
Underscoring praise and worship, prayer, and relationship is growing in knowledge and understanding. None of this is a one and done. We continually grow in understanding of all of the who, what, whys as we live out our lives. As we act on all of this we demonstrate to ourselves and others what and who it is that we believe – and why. Without applying we never know what we have learned. And if we don’t know what we have learned and how it relates to life, we are without knowledge.
I believe this is what God wants. In all of this it’s our intentionality about discovery, understanding, and application that speaks and demonstrates whether we’ve learned what God wants from/for us. And… you will also add those other important components which add and strengthen your foundation. Wherever we are on our journey of discovery and understanding, we are in a position of adding line upon line, precept upon precept. We are always becoming and this is a fruitful journey when we apply our discovery and fulfilling when we understand.
