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Self-Centered Living vs. God-Centered Living
While the essence of sin is a shift from a God-centered to a self-centered life, the essence of salvation is a denial of self and a return to a God-centered outlook. We must come to a place where we renounce our self-focused approach to life and turn the attention and control over to God. When this happens, God orients us to himself and to the purposes He is accomplishing around us.
Self-centeredness is a subtle yet common trap. The world praises self-reliance, and trusting God may make no sense from a human perspective.
God-centeredness requires a daily denial of self and a submission to God. Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop. The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:24-25).
The world urges us to protect, pamper, promote, comfort, and prosper ourselves. But God tells us to deny ourselves. Well-meaning family and friends want us to live close to them. They hope we’ll earn a comfortable salary and build a prestigious reputation, but all of that may only be nurturing the very self that Christ commanded us to deny.
To live a God-centered life, you must focus on God’s purposes, not your own plans. When God starts to do something in the world, He takes the initiative to tell someone what He is doing. Out of His grace, God involves His people in accomplishing His purposes.
What if, when He came to you and invited you to join Him in His redemptive activity, you responded in a self-centered way? Supposed you said, “I don’t think I can do that. I don’t have enough formal education. I’m afraid to speak in public. I don’t think I have the experience.”
Do you see what happens? The focus is on self. The moment you sense God wants to do something in and through your life, you present Him with an extensive list of reasons why He has chosen the wrong person or why His timing is not convenient. We need to seek God’s perspective. God knows we can’t do it! He wants to accomplish His purposes through us anyway. God’s achieving anything in our life hinges on His presence and activity in us.
The Bible says, “It is God who is working in you, enabling you both to will and to act for His good purpose” (Philippians 2:13).
You must be careful to identify God’s initiative and distinguish it from your desires. A self-centered person tends to confuse his or her personal agenda with God’s will.
Moreover, circumstances can’t always be a clear direction for God’s leadership. Christians often talk about “open” and “closed doors,” asking God to close a door if they are not heading the right way. The danger in this thinking lies in assuming that God’s will is always the path of least resistance (i.e., the open door).
For example, many people have said God led them to leave their current job or ministry position after having been there only a short time. They sensed God leading them to the first person but, after they arrived, problems and difficulties arose. They assumed God would not want them to remain under such difficult circumstances. So when a new door “opened,” they seized it as God’s deliverance.
But what do difficult circumstances have to do with obeying God’s will. If you’re focused on self, you’ll always seek to protect yourself and pursue what is most comfortable and what most builds up. When times get hard, “self” immediately urges you to quit or flee or find another position.
But if you are God-centered, your focus remains on Him alone. Storms may rage around you, but as long as you have God in your sight, you’ll stay the course. Often things do become more difficult after we obey God.
A Praying Pastor
In every situation, God demands that you depend on Him, not on a method. They key is not a formula but a relationship with God.
George Mueller was a pastor in England during the nineteenth century. By the time of his death, Mueller had been used by God to build four orphanages that cared for two thousand children at a time. In all, more than ten thousand children had been provided for through the orphanages he started. In addition, Mueller had distributed more than $8 million that had been given to him in direct answer to prayer. Yet when he died at ninety-three, his personal possessions were valued at only $800.
Here is how Mueller summed up the way to a heart relationship with God:
- I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the trouble with people generally is just there.
- Having done this, I do not leave the result to feeling or simple impression. If so, I make myself liable to great delusions.
- I seek the will of the Spirt of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined.
- Next, I take into account providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God’s will in connection with His Word and Spirit.
- I ask God in prayer to reveal His will to me aright.
- Thus, through prayer to God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to the best of my ability and knowledge, and if my mind is thus at peace, and continues so after two or three more petitions, I proceed accordingly.
Know God
God wants us to know more than His character; He also wants us to learn His ways. God’s ways are not our ways. God’s ways lead to life. His ways bring joy. They are holy and perfect.
God wants us to align our lives with Him so He will accomplish his divine purposes in and through us. If we will not submit to God and His ways, He will allow us to follow our own devices. But be sure of this: we will miss God’s activity, and we will not experience what God wants to do through us to bless others.
If you want to know God’s will, you must respond to His invitation to love Him wholeheartedly. God works through those He loves in order to carry out His Kingdom purposes in the world.
You will never be satisfied merely knowing about God. You come to know God through experience as He reveals Himself to you and you respond to what He says.
In Genesis 22, God asked Abraham to offer his only son as a sacrifice. God was in the process of developing Abraham’s character to be the father of a nation. He put Abraham’s faith and obedience to the test, bringing Abraham to a crisis of belief.
When Isaac asked where the sacrifice was, Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son” (verse 8). He adjusted his life to act on his belief that God was Provider. He obeyed God. When God provided a ram, Abraham came to an intimate knowledge of God by experiencing God as his provider.
Knowing God comes only through experience as He reveals Himself. We can know God more intimately as He reveals Himself through our experiences with Him.
Worship God
God’s name is majestic and worthy of our praise. David wrote about the majesty of God’s name in Psalm 8:1. Acknowledging God’s name amounts to recognizing who God is. Calling on His name indicates that you are seeking His presence. Praising His name is praising Him.
Seeing God’s name in Scripture can inspire you to worship Him. To worship is to reverence and honor God, to acknowledge Him as worthy of your praise.
Love God
A love relationship with God requires that you demonstrate your love by obedience. If you love Him, you will obey Him.
Because God’s nature is love, the way He expresses Himself to you is always best. Two verses describe His love toward us: “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son” (John 3:16) and “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16).
“God is love” (1 John 4:16). Your absolute trust in God’s love is crucial.
By nature, God is omniscient—all-knowing. He has all knowledge—past, present, and future. Nothing is outside His understanding. Whenever God guides you, therefore, His directions are always right and trustworthy.
As you respond to Him in childlike trust, a whole new way of looking at life will begin to unfold for you. Your life will be fulfilling. You will never sense an emptiness or a lack of purpose in your life. God always fills your life with Himself. When you have Him, you have everything God has, available to your life.
God’s commands are expressions of His love. In Deuteronomy, God declares that His commands are for our good.
God loves you deeply and profoundly. Because He loves you, He has given you guidelines for living so you will not miss the full dimensions of the love relationship.
God has given commands so you can prosper and live life to its fullest measure.
Your love relationship with God prepares you to be involved in His work by developing in you a God-centered life. Focusing your attention on God’s plans, purposes, and ways—rather than your own—is essential.
God Invites You to Join Him
God’s Timing
Don’t be in a hurry to be constantly engaged in activities for God. He may spend years preparing your character or developing your love relationship with Him before He gives you a large assignment.
Remain faithful in what He has told you to do, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it may appear. Jesus was twelve when He went about the Father’s business in the temple. Yet, He was thirty before He began the public ministry God had prepared Him for. The Son of God spent several years as a carpenter, waiting until the Father was ready for Jesus to begin His public ministry.
How Does God Invite You to Be Involved with Him?
Let’s review Jesus’ example from John 5:
17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.
Jesus’ Example
- The Father has been working right up until now.
- Now the Father has Me working.
- I do nothing on My own initiative.
- I watch to see what the Father is doing.
- The Father loves Me.
- He shows me everything He is doing.
- I do what I see the Father doing.
The key word in statement 4 is watch. Jesus watched to see where the Father was at work. Then He did what He saw the Father doing.
When you see the Father at work around you, that is your invitation to adjusts your life to Him and join Him in that work.
Two factors are important for you to recognize God’s activity around you:
- You must live in an intimate love relationship with God.
- God must take the initiative to open your spiritual eyes so you can see what He is doing. Unless God allows you to see where He is active, you will not recognize what God is doing even though He may be working mightily all around you.
Is it possible for God to be active around you and you not to recognize it? Yes. Elisha and his servant were in the city of Dothan, which was surrounded by an enemy army that was intent on capturing them. The servant was terrified, but Elisha remained calm. “Then, Elisha prayed, ‘Lord, please open his eyes and let him see.’ So the Lord opened the servant’s eyes. He looked and saw that the mountain was covered with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17). Only when the Lord opened the servant’s eyes did he see God’s activity all around him.
Knowing Where God Is at Work
A tender, sensitive heart will be ready to respond to God at the slightest prompting. God sensitizes your heart to His so you are prepared to recognize and respond to what He is doing around you.
Here’s a list of some things only God can do:
- Draw people to Himself.
- Cause people to seek Him.
- Reveal spiritual truth.
- Convict the world of guilt about sin.
- Convict the world of righteousness.
- Convict the world of judgment.
When you see one of those things happening, you know God is at work. He is active when you see someone coming to Christ, asking about spiritual matters, beginning to understand spiritual truth, experiencing conviction of sin, being convinced of Christ’s righteousness, or being convinced of judgment.
When you want to know what God is doing around you, pray. Watch to see what happens next. Make the connection between your prayer and what happens next. Be ready to make whatever adjustments are required for you to join God in what He is doing. Find out what God is doing by asking probing questions, like:
- How can I pray for you?
- Do you want to talk?
- What is the biggest need you have in your life right now?
- What are you learning about yourself through this?
- What do you think God is trying to do or say?
Frequently, the reason we do not join God is because we are not committed to join Him. We want God to bless us, not to work through us. Don’t keep asking God to bless your plans and goals or those of your church. Rather, look for God’s invitation to join Him in accomplishing His work. The presence and activity of God in your life will bring a blessing as a result of your obedience. When you identify where God is at work and respond in love to His invitation, you’ll experience Him at work in and through your life. There is no more wonderful experience than being at the heart of God’s activity.
When God Speaks
Be aware of two points about God’s invitation for you to join Him:
- God speaks when He is about to accomplish His purposes.
- What God initiates, He completes. Isaiah confirmed this truth when God said, “I have spoken, so I will also bring it about. I have planned it; I will also do it” (Isaiah 46:11).
Experiencing God Today
One of the most beautiful things about our relationship with God is that He invites us to become involved with Him. God takes the initiative to involve His people with Him in His work. He does this on His timetable, not ours.
When He opens your spiritual eyes to see where He is at work, that revelation is your invitation to join Him. You will know where He is working when you see Him doing things only God can do.
Reflect on what is happening around you. Try to identify things God is presently initiating in your life. Pray over each one, and allow the Holy Spirit to give you further clarification regarding what He intends to do in and through your life.
When you pray, stop and watch what God does after you pray. Sometimes it’s not the big things God calls you to do, but the small things that have a big impact. Keep your spiritual ears and eyes open!