God Approves of Matter

I recently noticed another evidence that God does not despise matter. For several thousand years His presence on earth was centered in a fancy box first housed in a tent and then a grand building. After Christ, God finds His primary dwelling on earth in our physical and nonphysical beings. God does not despise all matter, He lived and lives in it. As He lives in us He is working to make us the glorious gods that He originally made us to be: body and spirit existing independently and creatively in our love for Him.

What God Wants

One of the most overlooked concepts among American Christians today is an understanding of what God wants with man. We have built up a long list of presuppositions about what God wants: good action, faithful church attendance, evangelism, heartfelt worship services, a clean lifestyle, good business practices, and solid families.

While most of these things are very good, they miss what God really wants from us and in many cases we have raised these as the goal instead of that which truly pleases God. We feel like we have pleased God if we raise a good family or regularly attend church or hand out tracts or feel emotionally blessed after a worship service. We tend to think that if our life is full of these things we are giving God what He wants. Some even believe that if we could cause all or most of America to do this then America would please God.

Sometimes the false god-pleaser’s we believe in are not even Scriptural. We become so committed to our way of pleasing God that we can only accept as a brother or sister those who are doing the same thing. We reject associating with fellow believers because they allow a different kind of women’s head covering or mode of baptism or dress different. This reveals a lack of understanding of what God wants from man.

As I continue to read Scripture, one theme comes up throughout its sixty-six books. God wants the heart of man to be turned toward Him. The sin of Adam and Eve was that they had turned their hearts toward their own desires. The sin of the children of Israel was that they continued to turn their hearts from God. Over and over God’s laments, expressed through the prophets and judges, begin by mourning the fact that the people had turned their hearts away from God to their own desires. In many cases it is only after stating this that the passage goes on to say how the people are sinning now that their hearts have turned away.

Psalms 51:16-17 (You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.) and I Samuel 15:22 (And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.) along with many other passage in Scripture point to the fact that what God wants is a person who is fully surrendered to Him. It is not about actions or looks or words, it is about have one’s heart turned toward God. Jesus pronouncement of the Greatest Commandment references this as well. All God really wants from us is complete, uninterrupted love for Him and brokenness before Him. After we have died to ourselves and become alive to Christ, as Paul puts it, we will then begin to do certain things that flow out of our desire to be like Christ. We will not do things to please Him or to earn our way or because they are so important, but we will do them because doing them is what Christ did. We worry not about being right or doing right, but about loving and copying Jesus Christ.

How does this play out in life. If we understand this, we will stop having so many Americans who claim that they are fine because they believe in God or because they go to church. It will be more universally understood that being a Christian is about first and formost, being dead to self. It will allow us to have a place of common ground with those who believe or act differently than us. They are committed to being alive to Christ, just like us. Suddenly those little matters of dress and baptism and worship style are less important because what really matters is pointing one’s heart in God’s direction, not wearing the same kind of suit.