focus Archives : Life with the King

Gratefulness is not my default setting. I need to make a conscious decision, and ask for God’s grace to be grateful. But having a grateful heart is one of the best things in life. It opens you up to possibility, it makes God’s work easier to notice in your life, it helps focus you on the Truth, that we have endless reasons to be grateful to God, starting with life itself.

Last week I did something out of obedience to God that required sacrifice. Afterwards, I felt tired and had gotten discouraged. I had obeyed God, but I forgot to be grateful for the opportunity to obey in the first place. Instead, I was focused on all the things that had been uncomfortable about the experience, and had pushed and challenged me. But the Truth is, I can focus on being grateful that I chose to obey the Lord. The tolls of living in the fallen world pale in comparison, and thinking about it in these terms, suddenly makes it easy to realize I would choose it again every time.

Obedience is a direct result of fearing God. Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10), essential for a life lived in Christ. Hebrews 12 says, “See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:25-29).

This passage warns us to fear God, to obey Him, and implies that the only right response to the kingdom that we live in, that which is eternal and in Christ, is being grateful. From our grateful hearts with the wisdom of His kingdom, our only response is to worship God with a holy fear.

God is bigger than every inconvenience, discomfort, or challenge. He is faithful to us, and His will is for us to obey Him. He helps us to do that whenever we choose it. It’s okay to ask for God’s help to have a grateful heart. Obeying God doesn’t mean life will suddenly be easy. Life is difficult for everyone. But with God’s help, we can be grateful, seeing through new eyes by His grace just how much He has done, is doing, and will continue to do for us. I’ve had to ask for His help doing that this week. It’s been a needed lesson, and maybe you can relate, if not today, then someday. Let’s remember He will help us when we ask! He alone can change our hearts, giving us hearts of gratefulness that please Him; He is faithful.

Thanks be to God!

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Colossians 3:16).

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to Life with the King, and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me continue writing this blog. Grace and peace.

Like the worship song implies, God can and should be praised all day long for His goodness. But do we? I fall short time after time to give God the praise and worship I know He is worthy to receive. I ignore Him, go my own way, and simply disobey far more often than I’d like to admit. My own lack of surrender is heavy on my heart today. I have touched on the topic of goodness in previous posts such as Human Goodness, and The Profound Sufficiency of Christ, but today, God’s goodness is front and center.

Life with God does not mean we will feel happy all the time. It involves feeling the pain of life when God feels far away, when prayers feel blocked, or when the weight of conviction feels suffocating. It’s all part of it. Life with God is not easy. Because of God’s goodness, however, we can still take heart! “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:13-14).

In Psalm 23, David pours out a song to God that ends with the promise of God’s goodness: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6). Goodness is what comes of walking with God like a sheep with their shepherd. If we’re the sheep, we just don’t do so well when separated from our shepherd. We need God, and when we walk with Him through our lives, we experience His goodness.

Goodness is a characteristic of God. God is the embodiment of goodness; Scripture reveals that throughout history, He seeks and works things out for the best for everyone. He is kind to us when we have been unkind, merciful to us when we haven’t shown mercy, and faithful to us when we haven’t been faithful in our devotion to Him, all because He is so incredibly, miraculously, unfathomably good! He gives us His abundant goodness because that is who He is–loving and generous and faithful to give us many chances to turn to Him and come into agreement with the way He made us and the purpose for His creation. His best for us is realized when we choose Him as our Shepherd. In His great goodness, He wants the best for us. He wants us to be His because being under His care is where we thrive best.

On the days we feel heavy with the weight of our human limitations, it’s often because we’re paying too much attention to ourselves, instead of God. What would happen if we focused on Jesus instead? What good would it do our hearts to imagine Jesus sitting next to us, no words needed, just His eyes looking into ours with His loving goodness, without any condemnation (Romans 8:1)?

He does not want us to sit long in the heaviness of our own shortcomings. He invites us to simply and humbly accept that He paid for it on the cross. What profound goodness is found in this! His blood is sufficient, and our debt is paid. In these days when I glimpse the depths I’ve been saved from, I appreciate His goodness all the more fully and deeply. He is the only place we find refuge from our sin. “But my eyes are toward you, O God, my Lord; in you I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless!” (Psalm 141:8) What a good Father God is, that He is a place of refuge from all the heaviness, shame, and sin that would seek to destroy us.

May we fix our eyes on His goodness, and may we be open to receive the great goodness of God in our lives and hearts today. Amen.

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13).

“For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all“(Romans 11:32).

“What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me?” (Psalm 116:12).

Thank you for spending some of your time journeying with me. If you haven’t yet, please subscribe and like & follow the Facebook page; it truly helps me to continue writing about Life with the King. Grace and peace.

Tag: focus

A Grateful Heart

Characteristics of God: The Goodness of God