Have you ever thought or said to someone, "You are so full of yourself!"

Believe it or not, I am posting this only a few days after my last post! God is moving big in my brain these days and I just had to share. Once again, it centers around the wonderful bible study I am currently doing. (In case anyone is interested, here is a link to the actual book. copy & paste...)

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Worship-Tabernacle-FollowingDiscipleship/dp/0899572995/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324515023&sr=8-1

I highly recommend it. Very deep, amazingly foundational and in my view, a must.

Anywho....here is what was causing my brain to work overtime. It revolves around passages James 4:5-6 which says...

Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”

Now, this verse seems pretty straight forward for the most part. Well, sort of. This is what I see as I read it and ponder it.

James is almost being sarcastic by saying, Do you think that the bible is saying for no good reason that God is jealous? When it comes to His spirit and its dwelling in us, our God can get jealous and if it wasn't true, the bible surely wouldn't say it! God clearly keeps being gracious with us. Let's not forget, God is against the proud and loves on the ones that are humble. Now, please know that I am not claiming to say I am a bible scholar of any sort. Goodness no. I am being bold and pray that I am honoring God with what my heart understands and then shares with you.

Here's the thing about what James is saying to us. It mentions God being jealous. That perplexes me. What on earth does the Creator of the universe have to be jealous about? Has that ever confused you?

Well, the Holy Spirit helped me to understand this. Once I understood it, the idea of it definitely had a WOW factor in it. Here is what the spirit taught me:

Our God loves us so deeply, so intensely that when we have any other focus in our lives, he gets jealous. He gave us free will which intensifies our love of him once we experience it. (after all, isn't it better when our children give us a hug and say I love you because they love us rather than they are made to!) It is that same free will that enables our hearts to stray and end up focusing on something else besides our Creator as our item of worship. We are all so fickle! It is easy for us to get completely absorbed in our jobs, our kids, money, a new home, clothes, status, power....the list goes on and on. So many things quickly and easily take the center of our lives which by definition, replaces God as the one in the center. I am guilty of this...so guilty.

Since my walk with God began, which is when He became my center of worship I have not intentionally worship something else but it seems to creep in without me realizing. As I look back over the years, the one thing that keeps creeping in to become my focus is......ME! Ouch! It ends up being Michelle focusing all of her energy on Michelle!! The sickness of self worship is a disease that just gets worse if left unchecked. It is hard to diagnose and painful to treat. Let's go back to that verse in James. It is that pride/proud part of the verse that speaks to the self focus issue. (keep in mind, this "proud" is not the same a parent being proud of her child for getting good grades) God loves his children so much that even when the center of our world, the focus of our heart is US, he gets jealous. HE wants to be the focus. He created us, he knows what we need and when we need it. He wants to be our everything.

Back to that verse in James again. It tells us that God caused His spirit to dwell in us. When that Spirit, which is God himself, gets pushed and squished within us, because the space is being occupied by the self and all things ones self, what does God do? Well, according to James, God continues to be gracious....waiting for us to realize our "disease". Being proud or "full of ourselves" is not good. When we are so full of ourselves that God has no room to dwell within, we need to remember that our loving creator is jealously, graciously waiting for us to return to Him! Selah. Blessings.