In my devotion today I read 1 Chronicles 17, where David purposes to build God a house, but the Lord tells David no. The Lord then goes on to bless David and promise him a lineage and a great name. This chapter finishes with David in deep conversation with God, pouring his heart out to God, the Lord of his life. I was convicted by this scene, and brought to see the overall picture of David’s relationship with God. When I saw this I thought about the backwards nature of our service for the Lord today. In all of David’s life he was focused on God, on his relationship with God. When he killed Goliath, he didn’t do it for God because Goliath threatened God’s people. He killed Goliath because Goliath spoke against God; he did it to honor God. He wanted to build a temple to honor God, not for God, as if God needed it.
In our own lives I believe that we miss the main purpose of Christianity, which is to glorify God by having a relationship with Him. That was why He created Adam, that is what Adam lost when he sinned and that is what Christ restored on the cross, fellowship with God, a relationship with Him. We tend to do for God when we should be doing to God. We miss the starting point so our whole frame of reference is wrong. Don’t minister for God, don’t serve for God, first, love God, give your life to God and never lose this focus. Then, from this deep seated relationship that you have with God you will begin to minister, you will begin to serve, and your motives will be pure and God will be the Lord or your life.
My purpose in life is to glorify God, first by loving Him. This will naturally then lead to loving my neighbor, and both of these will be seen in my life by living in the fullness of the gospel.
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