He Owns It All

For in Him we live and move and have our being.  Acts 17:28

Its funny.  We grow up on this planet assuming that we belong to ourselves.  We assume that we can do whatever we want.  We are individuals.  We have rights.  We are free.  We can’t see God, so its hard to know sometimes that He exists and who He is.  But then one day we meet Him.   We fall in love with Him.  But, as in my case, it can become hard to understand why we are told to praise and worship Him?   One reason our country is great because we believe that everyone is created equal.  We aren’t used to societies that have ruling classes where it is accepted that one must respect and submit to persons above them. 

I struggled with this a year or two after being saved.  If God loved me, why would He ask me to praise Him??  I couldn’t understand why God, who loved me so much and was my Friend, would ask me to lift Him up and praise Him.  It just didn’t make sense in my logical mind.  I prayed about it and asked God, but still didn’t come to a logical answer.  So one day I finally just decided to do it.  And in doing it I felt such joy and a sense that it was right.

Even now sometimes I struggle with allowing God to be in control.  Sometimes I do better than others.  The days I give Him control are often wonderful days as I watch as He works out my day.  But other days I find myself resistant.  I just want to do what I want to do!  I know it’s not right and ultimately it leads to discontent on my part.  But yet I still choose it sometimes.  Why do I have so much trouble giving Him control and admitting that He is my Master, albeit the most loving, gentle, kind Master there is, who is always working for my good .

But as I look at who God is, it becomes easier to understand why we should worship and obey Him.  He created all of us!  Before that there was nothing but God.  He has always existed, He has no beginning and no end.  He always Is.  And then He decided to create the earth and us.   We only live because God sustains us.  Our heart beats, we breathe in oxygen, our soul lives because He sustains us.  

He created the perfect planet to sustain us.  It is just the right distance from the sun to sustain our life.  A bit too close and we burn up.  A bit too far and we freeze to death.  We have just the right amount of oxygen so that we can breathe and not some other gas which would poison us.  Without Him creating the perfect, safe environment for us to live in, we would not continue to exist.

No only did He create us and our planet, but He created a plan for us as well.  We are living in the story that He created.  He knew Adam and Eve would sin.  He knew He would send Jesus to die for our sins.  He knows when He will come back again to bring us to  be with Him.  It is His story, planned by Him from beginning to end.  And we are a part of it, walking through our little piece of it.

So for me to think that I am my own, that I am independent, free to do whatever I want is kind of silly in light of all that!  It is all God’s.  His people.  His story.  He has a right to tell me what is right and wrong.  He has a right to be worshiped and adored.  He is, after all, all-powerful, holy beyond our understanding, and Love.  He loves us more than we can imagine.  He is a great, unimaginable, good Being, the likes of which we cannot conceive.  We’ve never met on this earth anyone who compares.  We never will.  Even the angels in all their glory, do not hold a candle to God.  He is the One and Only great and awesome God.

In light of all this, our response is only to bow down and worship.  We are created from a thought in His mind.  We are sustained by His will.  We are cared for and protected by His Love.  We are created for Him and by Him, living on His earth, walking through His plan, His story until He brings His children safely Home to be with Him.  We are not our own.  We are His.  In the end there really is no other response than worship and submission. 

And the amazing thing is that with all His power and glory and greatness and holiness, He comes down to find us, each of His individual children.  He comes to seek each one of us and gives us dignity, life in Him, a sense of purpose in His plan, the love we have always desired.   In fact, He gives us the love that He created us to receive and without which we are incomplete.   The Great King treats us as friends, as sons and daughters.  He treats us gently and kindly as we kneel in awe and reverence of our Master and Love.

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