Super Sins and their Power to Separate us from God?!?

New Year's day and we are setting around discussing how things seem to come between us and God. The problem is not that things come between us and God. Paul asks in Romans 8:35-36 if anything can separate us from the love of Christ. Then he goes through a short list of physical trials and dangers including death. In the next three verses (Romans 8:37-39) Paul declares that nothing can come between us and God. If there is really nothing that can separate us from God then why do we seem to struggle with that feeling of separation?

The reality is that we are really quite prideful. We think of ourselves as somehow needing to do some kind of penance in order to make ourselves right with God. The only problem with that is it makes our standing with God dependent on our ongoing work and not on Jesus finished work. We are living as if our sins are somehow super sins that require more than Jesus' atoning work!

King David in the Bible is called a man after God's own heart. Here is a guy who had big public sins and rebellion within his household. He was so bad he probably would not be accepted at a lot of our churches. Saul his predecessor might not have been a man after God's heart but his house was orderly and his children were loyal to him. Contrary to David, Saul would probably be accepted at a lot of our churches.

What seems to define David being a man after God's own heart is his continual dependence on God. Nothing seemed to be able to separate David from God. When Nathan confronted him with his sin we see repentance and Psalm 51 as a result. When Absalom drove him from Jerusalem he was mocked and cursed by Shimei one of Saul's descendants. In 2 Samuel 16:9-12 his response is one of acceptance of this cursing as if it were from God. In the next breath he sees in the cursing hope that God will repay him good for the cursing he received. Instead of getting defensive at being kicked when he was down, David hopes in God's blessing. Earlier in David's life Saul was hunting him down to kill him. Twice David could have killed Saul (1 Samuel 24:9-12, 26:8-11). In both cases David shows dependence on God to be the one who would avenge him. David's heart seems to always turn to God and cling to Him even if he has sinned. David is dependent on God. In contrast Saul continually did things in his own strength and did rarely showed repentance or dependence on God.

Perhaps the problem when things seem to separate us from God is that we pridefully refuse to depend upon the grace found in the finished work of Jesus. Our actions declare that we really don't believe that Jesus' work was powerful enough for us. Brothers and sisters you are not that great of a sinner, no one is. David really demonstrates what it means to live a God focused life. It might be broken but it is utterly dependent on God. Better to be a broken vessel in my Savior's hands than to be standing on my own in insufficient penance. Let your sin drive you to repentance and your Savior's embrace.

Necessary Church Body Actions Show Pastors are Depending on the Wrong Things

An article on foxnews.com today caught my attention. It is titled, "Churches, other groups do more background checks". They are doing these checks with good reason. A number of pastors and church workers have a criminal history. This becomes especially egregious when the history includes sex abuse. A situation involving sexual indiscretions arose recently in a local denomination. This is the third scandal like this that has arisen in the last ten years. I find this situation to be a sad reflection on where the hearts of church leaders are. I wish that I could give congregations a clear signal that would help them to determine if the man they are evaluating has a heart set upon God. There are however some things that I think congregations can look at that could help them to have a better idea about the heart of the man God has placed before them.

• Try to determine without asking outright if the person being considered would do the work of ministry whether they are paid or not. In other words is this a calling on their life that they cannot escape.
• Look at the persons conversations. Are they naturally drawn to talk about their Lord Jesus. Is there a natural ease to their conversations about God.
• Do these conversations come from their heart or their head? Are they heartfelt or are they cerebral?
• Do you see evidence of discipleship reflected in his family? Is he leading his family toward God.

There are also some things that churches depend on that could give them a false sense of security. I would recommend John Pipers book, "Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry". It will help churches to look for men who are living in dependence on God. But since pastors have often stopped depending on God then it is no surprise when the churches stop as well. When the church has moved from depending on prayer and the direction of the Holy Spirit to depending on professional pastoral placement agencies there is something wrong. Pastors are under shepherds. They are tasked with helping to point the people to God. To help them to grow in relationship with Jesus. Seminary training can only go so far in helping a man to accomplish this. Pastoral placement agencies can only look to external evidences. Ultimately it is a pastor's heart and their dependence or lack thereof upon the God that will make or break them (Psalm 127:1). Churches need to look for men who cannot do what they do without God (Psalm 20:7). Men that need him desperately. Men that don't trust in the flesh.

This is the single biggest reason that background checks are necessary. Pastors are not living in dependence upon God. They trust too much in their own ability. The flesh is weak and unfit for the task. We desperately need the Lord's help. If the church is to regain her vitality and strength (which can only come from God) then her under shepherds need to be needy. If we cannot show people that we need the Lord then how can the people ever learn how important it is to need Him. In a success oriented society like ours, the servant leader must learn that true success is when Christ increases and we decrease. If this were the focus of the hearts of pastors then background checks would become unnecessary because He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6).

Holiness and Happiness

An article appeared on Livescience.com today. It is called, "Don't Worry: Happiness Levels Not Set in Stone". The main point of the article is that happiness is not genetically prewired. Happiness can change for all of us throughout our lives. They point to things that really happy people have in common. One of those things is going to church. I find this interesting for a very good reason. In my interactions with people who call themselves Christians I have often heard a comment about happiness. It usually comes from someone facing a challenge in their lives. It goes something like this, "God wants me to be happy doesn't He?"

What always strikes me as interesting about these comments is that they usually come from people going through situations where they are being pushed by the circumstances to lean more on God. God will place us in situations that strip away the earthly things that we depend upon. He does this to bring us into a greater dependence on Him and to help us to know Him better. Job went through this very thing. God led Job to a place where he looked back on what he went through and declares that he has seen things too wonderful for him (Job 42:3). What Job went through stripped him of everything that he had to enjoy and depend on except for God. Yet Job appears to count it as all worth it because He has come to know God better. James says a similar thing in James 1:2-4,

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

It appears that James point is that God wants us to be holy or set apart to Himself more than He want us to be happy. But here is the great irony for those who come to embrace knowing God. In coming to know and depend upon God we will find that there is greater peace and joy in knowing God than in not knowing Him. You see when we are depending on Him we know that the things our heavenly Father takes us through are for our benefit. When we realize that even the challenges are there to help to shape us we can rejoice in them (Philippians 4:4). Does God want us to be happy? No God wants us to be Holy, but in the midst of embracing the holiness that He is producing in us we will find true and lasting happiness and joy.

Is it really the recessions fault?

An AP article posted on Yahoo news blames the recession for a marked decline in marriages. The article, "Recession rips at US marriages, expands income gap" imagines a link between the recession and lack of marital commitment. This is a false equivalency. During this same recessionary period people are spending money on things that they want. They make iPads one of the best product intro's ever for Apple. They make the iPhone 4 its fastest selling phone ever. They are continuing to go to movies (we are just finishing September and total box office for this year is approaching last years total ticket numbers). Wine sales are up this year over last. All of this to say that as a people we are doing what we want to do.

The primary reason that people are not getting married is because they do not want to. In our society we seem to realize that this might not be a good thing over all. Certainly it can't be our fault. Let's blame it on the recession. The fact that we don't want to make the commitment of marriage can't be the reason.

The real problem is that people no longer seem to have an aversion to adultery. The atheistic philosophies of our schools and universities have successfully eradicated any sense of moral commitment to marriage. This aversion to marriage is paraded across our TV and movie screens as well. The entire society is beating a drumbeat of me, me, me, me. When our focus is what is in it for me a commitment to someone else fails the "me" test. With no morally compelling reason to commit it is no wonder that marriage is in decline. This should be alarming to us because it signals a real failure of the christian community to be salt and light in our society (Matthew 5:13-16). When you look at the Matthew passage salt and light is not something that we become. Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. In other words without us the world has no salt to bring flavor to life and without us the world has no light to truly see by. God has called us to Himself and placed us where He has placed us for a reason. We must see this and embrace the reality that is before us. Do you know someone who claims to be a Christian that is living with someone else or considering doing so? This might be one of the most difficult things you have ever done, but you should reach out to them in love. Don't condemn but point them to Christ. Help them to realize their need of repentance. Help them to see that to actively engage in pursuing sinful actions against God is to hold the cross of Christ in contempt. Be broken for them because this is where the hardest of hearts come from. Make sure that they know they are loved and that their heart and life should be focused on the Lord Jesus. Do we want to see our society regain its moral bearings? It must begin with individuals caring enough about others to help them catch a vision for pursuing Jesus Christ.

Emotional reminders of our insufficiency

Today was an admittedly challenging day. I looked at our bank account. (When your unemployed this can be a discouraging thing to do.) While I know that it is God that supplies our needs sometimes I get hit with a tsunami of emotion when I contemplate the gravity of it all. After applying for what seems like hundreds of jobs one begins to feel a bit rejected. My pride quickly kicks in and begins to feel injured. Thoughts like "No one wants me", "I'm just not good enough" and "Perhaps if I had just contacted this person or that one". All of this is really an emotional roller coaster that takes off from the platform of self, climbs the mountain of pride and quickly plunges into the maddening spiral of self in the pit of pity. Thank God for His grace, and the examples that we have in His precious word. Paul talked about being buffeted by a messenger of Satan. He requested that it be taken away. God's responded that His grace was sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9). God's grace is just as sufficient today. These times of my failing are valuable reminders of my insufficiency. They cause me to depend even more on Jesus. Without Him this time of challenge would be truly overwhelming. Because He has so graciously granted me a heart that desires to focus on Him, He saves me from myself. The Holy Spirit draws my eyes to my magnificent God and plants my feet on the solid rock of Jesus. If you find the trials overwhelming turn to our Lord and use our insufficiency to embrace the sufficiency that can only be found in Him.

How does a God focus affect tithing? Is it for today?

Is tithing for today? Have you ever wondered how it works now that we are under grace? Do we still have a legalistic requirement to give a tenth?

People go back and forth arguing about the issue of tithing. On the one side you hear people proclaiming that we should give 10% of our gross income. Someone else says you should give 10% of your net. Another guy comes along and says you don't have any requirement at all. What is it? Does the Bible give us a clue? I think that there is real clarity on this issue in the Bible. Without any question the Bible can be taken out of context and often twisted to make it say whatever we like. However the goal of this site is to look at relevant cultural issues through the lens of scripture and see if a God focus brings us greater understanding. So we will let God be God and submit to his clarity.


To begin with lets consider the issue of the ten commandments. Paul tells us in Galatians that the ten commandments are a school master to bring us to Christ. What he is saying is that the ten commandments were there to show us that we needed a Savior because we were insufficient to accomplish the task ourselves. Because of the ten commandments and our inability to keep them it becomes apparent that we need help of some sort to achieve communion with God. That help comes from the Holy Spirit and it manifest itself in the fruit of the spirit. One of the results of the Spirits work in our hearts will be a desire to know God better. So how can we know God better? Lets start with the ten commandments. Well how can we follow the ten commandments without being a legalist? First of all I would define legalism as any act done for the sake of making myself more spiritual in comparison to others. Legalism always carries with it the idea of comparison, i.e. how can I become more spiritual than someone else or how can I achieve the same perceived level of spirituality I observe in someone else. This is a very horizontal man-focused type of achievement. God's law is God centered it shows us what is pleasing to God. If we pursue the following of God's law in full awareness of our falleness and unworthiness with the idea of perhaps coming to know God better in this pursuit then we avoid the monster of legalism. So in this way the ten commandments truly teach us how to bend our will to bring it into subjection to the desire of God and the things that please Him. It really is a schoolmaster.


So what does all of this have to do with tithing. Tithing in the old testament was always a starting point. There were multiple opportunities for people to give more than a tithe. Some argue that this was also the de-facto tax levied on the Israelites to pay for their infrastructure. That may have been the case but tithing continued even when the Jews were under rulership in which they were taxed. Jesus lived in such a time and His words are instructive here. Matthew 23:23 and Luke 11:42 record Christ's words on tithing. He tells the Scribes and the Pharisees here that they tithe down to the very herbs they grow in their garden but they neglect justice, the love of God, mercy and faithfulness. He goes on to say that they should tithe without neglecting these other issues. In Christ eyes tithing was not just acceptable but something that should be practiced as a normal matter of pursuing God. Why? You see tithing gives us an objective standard much like God's law that we can easily follow. It gives us a standard of 10% that we can take off of the top. As a starting point it is often just enough to cause us to have to adjust our standard of living down. It means we have to give up some things. You see when we tithe out of a desire to know God better we end up giving up some things for the sake of pursuing that relationship. It means that there are a few less things to get in the way of our pursuit of God. Tithing puts us in a place where we are trusting that God knows better than us what we need. It is in a sense abandoning ourselves to the hand of God in the area of our finances. When we do it with the express goal of knowing God better it becomes a pure joy to us to take part in building God's kingdom. We know that investment will last more than anything else we could buy. There literally becomes no better thing we could do with the money God entrust to us. On top of all that the people in the old testament tithed and they had not yet seen the full magnificence and glory of God's grace given at the cross. How could any of us on this side of the cross knowing the full weight of what has already been done give less then those who never knew. Giving a tenth is a requirement for us just like God's law for the sake of our hearts being brought into subjection to God so that we might know Him better. Who would not want that?

Meeting anticipation

We had relatives come for a visit today. They had not yet had a chance to meet our twin girls that joined us about 5 and 1/2 weeks ago. While we anticipated their visit and looked forward to it I was struck by the joy and obvious anticipation they had in meeting our new additions. As I reflected on this I realized that this type of anticipation is the same as what we will experience as we cross into eternity and have the chance to finally meet our Lord Jesus and our Heavenly Father. Only the anticipation and joy in meeting Him should exceed anything that we long for here. Why? Because it is only in Him that all things that we experience even exist. It is only in Jesus that we have any hope of eternity at all. It is only in Jesus that we will be made sons and daughters of God. It is a grand and glorious desire. To see Him and to be able to know Him is truly more magnificent than we can comprehend. It exceeds our wildest dreams or expectations. It is the grandest hope of all hopes. If your heart does not burn with a longing for Him, then seek Him. Ask Him to instill in your heart a greater desire. We are in a battle against the flesh (Romans 8:13). It is truly a battle to set our hearts and minds on God (Romans 13:14). So take on the battle. Become engaged in the fray. Turn your heart and mind to a focus on our Lord Jesus. It is only in Him that we will gain an anticipation and longing that will drive us toward eternal life and health and peace.

Evangelism comaraderie

As I reflected on the evangelism confusion that seems to exist in the church I thought it would be appropriate to focus on the camaraderie that exist with others who share their faith. We seem to be a small group and I pray that God will burden more for the work that needs to be done. But there is a precious fellowship and joy that exist with those you run across who also share their faith with others on a regular basis. Last evening as we were handing out tracts and sharing our faith we were joined by people from at least 4 different churches in the area. It is excellent to share in the bond of fellowship with people who want nothing more than to help others discover the marvelous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. His exaltation is our goal and we pray that His name was magnified. So if you have a desire to share your faith, get some training in Biblical evangelism. There are several different groups you could get help from. The Way of the Master with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron has a training that I think is available for free if you cannot afford it. They can be found at http://www.biblicalevangelism.com/. Find a friend and begin to team up to share with others. If you do not have a like minded friend begin to share and God will soon bring you in touch with others that share their faith as well. Keep your eyes focused on the King of kings because He is the one who brings the harvest. Ask Him to send forth laborers into the harvest (Luke 10:2) then go out there and join them. You will never regret it.

Do we love God???

Coming up on the weekend I thought a good question to ponder is, "Do we love God?" There is a legitimate reason to ask this question. Many of us talk about loving God as if it is an assumed reality if you are a Christian. The truth of the matter is that the command to love God and to love your neighbor or enemy is the most repeated set of commands in the New Testament. When I have to repeat something over and over again to my kids it is usually because they are not doing it. We have an incredibly strong propensity to be self centered as a people. This can be traced back to the fall. The lie of Satan was that we would be like God (Genesis 3:5). Since that time it seems like man is always seeking to be a god unto himself. And so we have this self-centered propensity in general in our society. We have in essence become god's unto ourselves. How does this impact our Christianity? Well lets look at our churches. What do they cater to? The perceived needs of the people usually. We spend a great deal of time focusing on creating programs and services that appeal to the people. We rarely ask the question, "Would this program or service appeal to Jesus?" Our main concern is not offending someone which is usually a euphemism for not ever confronting anyone or dealing with real issues. The main role of the Church is to gather people together at the feet of Jesus, to seek Him as our God and Savior. Jesus knew that we would struggle with giving up the god of self. What did Jesus call us to? He said that we should take up our cross daily and follow Him(Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23). The cross is a symbol of death. Paul clarified the metaphor in Galatians 2:20 when he says that we are crucified with Christ but that it is no longer us who live but Christ who lives in us. If that is not clear enough Paul defines what being crucified means in Galatians 5:24 when he says if you belong to Christ you crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. Now obviously if this happened instantly we would not have the commands to love God and our neighbors or enemies repeated again and again. The reality often is that we like God and all that Christianity has to offer, but all this other stuff well that’s for the really committed. I have even heard people refer to it as second level Christianity (Although I have never seen that in the Bible). These are the same people who will tell you they love the Lord. Do they? Do we? Just in case we were confused about the cross thing, Jesus said in Matthew 10:38 “And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” So the question to ponder this weekend is, "Are we willing to take up our cross and seek to love God?" Join me on this journey after God as we seek to live life focused on Him.

Sin nature vs. Pride

The immediate reaction to this title will be to say, aren't they the same? And in the respect that they are both sin you are correct. But as a Christian the fact that I am a sinful man helps me to have more grace with others. The biggest problem that the Pharisees faced was pride. Their faith had degenerated into one of externalism. All that mattered was what they looked like. This problem continues today. It's manifestation is different but it still exists. In the Christian community it might be performance pressure at church meetings. We may put the pressure on ourselves but it's often there. This can be a form of pride. Perhaps we want life to appear to be better than what it is. Are we fooling ourselves by thinking that we need to look a certain way? What about the tendency we have to try and please God through external actions? Remember Isaiah 6:1-7, here this prophet who would have been considered a great man in any of our churches calls himself a man of unclean lips. He sees the sin in his life and it humbles him. You see our sin when seen for what it is does humble us. It brings us up short and helps us to realize that not only do we not measure up we can never measure up. That is a good thing. Because when we really come to understand that WE truly cannot measure up we are closer to depending on God than at any other time. When we depend on God that is really when His glory can shine through us. Our pride must be put to death. When we realize that we only deserve God's wrath for everything then we will more desperately look to our Savior. Not that we go out and seek to sin, but the reality of our sin nature can become a catalyst that drives us more passionately into pursuing a God focused life.

Making the gospel relevant?

As I reflected on yesterday's post it seems to me that there are two engines that drive the vehicle of relevancy. The first engine is a misrepresentation of what the gospel is. Often the gospel message is presented in a context that is far from Biblical. (What I mean by Biblical is that it is not the way that Jesus or the apostles presented it.) It is often presented to people as if they are part of a group that needs some help getting to heaven and the cross gets us there. While the description is true in its essence there is never any need for the individuals that we share this with to feel sorry for offending a Holy God. There is no strong call to repent because there is no discussion of sin outside of the context of being part of a group of sinners. This rarely produces repentance and thus does not produce a personal need for a Savior. The second confusing way the gospel is presented is that God has a wonderful plan for your life. God does have a wonderful plan for the life of anyone who repents of his or her sin and follows Jesus as their Lord. The problem is that the idea of repentance and taking Jesus as Lord is usually not mentioned at all. It ends up being about asking Jesus into your heart. No repentance, no following required and usually none is committed to outside of a canned prayer. The gospel is all about recognizing that we are sinners and hopelessly lost without God's intervention in the person and work of Jesus Christ. If this were the gospel message that was presented there would be no need to make it relevant. The second engine that drives the vehicle of relevancy is the engine of unbelief. People simply do not believe that the work of the Holy Spirit combined with a clear Biblical gospel message is sufficient. This is simply a tragic misunderstanding of the power, purpose and work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus acted as if the message of repenting of sin and following Him was all that was needed. Take for example His interaction with the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17-22. The best way I know to combat both of these problems is to focus primarily on our Lord as we engage with Him in His word.

Happiness: SELF focused vs. God focused - Part 3

This is a continuation of a post I started 2 days ago. The other day Lucy Danziger published an article called, "4 Simple Secrets to Feeling Happier Every Day." Lucy is the Editor-in-Chief of SELF magazine. I will continue addressing the points of her article until they are covered. Point 3 in her article is, "Find your 'mouse hole!'" Basically the gist of it is to get away and recharge. There is a basic seed of good advice here. But being a Christian we can take it to a whole new level. Jesus in the sermon on the mount said, “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6) We could say that Jesus is saying sure go ahead get alone somewhere. Since your Father is there and you are not really alone pray. Embrace Him. Talk to Him. Commune with your God. Jesus promises that God will reward us. Sometimes we get some preconceived idea of what we want for a reward. Perhaps we want an answer to our prayer. Perhaps we want God to do things the way we think is best. But if we are really seeking God and not asking Him for things then what is the best reward we could get? The greatest possible reward we could be given in all the universe would be God. Learn to seek God. Learn to want God, and you will find God as your reward when you consistently pursue a God focused life.

Eliminate the competition

Last post I talked about the message of Abel. In a discussion with my wife another application to living the God focused life became apparent. When we analyze the story we see that Cain wanted God's acceptance. He wanted it so bad he was willing to kill for it. Now we might not kill for it but how often are we guilty of seeking positions as means of validating God's approval and acceptance or lack thereof. The church becomes a place where people often end up jockeying for position. We end up with a spiritual hierarchy or pecking order which is really far from spiritual. How does living a God focused life come to bear in this situation? It may not be a popular way or a way that is high profile but we do have an example in Jesus. Jesus ran into this problem with the disciples in Luke 22:24-27. In this situation Jesus told them that they needed to pursue becoming the servant of all. He said that pursuing positions was what the gentiles do. Jesus life also gives us a clue. Our objective should be to serve where God places us. Talk to the God about our desire and simply look for how we can serve. Wouldn't it be really cool if we knew that everyone who is in leadership in our church is there because they were identified as real servants. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 1:3, “...If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” (ESV) How do you handle that scenario? Serve. Tell the elders of your church what you desire, and continue to serve others. The greatest way for an elder board to have a pulse on the congregation is to serve it. By modeling service to one another we create a heart of service in our churches. When this happens we avoid fostering an atmosphere of spiritual competition. We teach people how to follow the second commandment which flows from the first. By depending on God's guidance, on His leadership to advance us, we model a God focused servant oriented life.

...through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

I was talking to my wife this morning about the relevance of Abel's message for the church today. I thought I would share it with you. Hebrews 11:4 says, “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.” What is the message of Abel? The message can only be understood in the context of the contrast in the story of his death. Abel offered to God a sacrifice that was more acceptable than Cain. So what you say. How does Abel speak through that? We often get the picture of Cain wrong. When we talk of Cain we think of a guy that is closer to Lamech the 5th generation from Cain. Lamech lives his life as he pleases and expects God to take care of things. After all God is a good God right? Lamech is like the typical pagan. Cain is not and this is why Abel still speaks. Cain wants God. Cain brings God a sacrifice. In one sense we could say that Cain goes to church. God talks to Cain. (We see no conversations between Lamech and God.) So what's the deal? Cain was not willing to come to God on God's terms. God does not condemn his sacrifice outright but it appears that God appeals to his heart's motive saying, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” (Gen. 4:7). The truth is that Cain wanted God so bad he was willing to kill to eliminate the competition for God's acceptance. After all the reason he killed Abel is that Abel's sacrifice was acceptable. When Cain is judged by God he says to God, “...“My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden.” (Gen. 4:14b-15a). Cain laments being driven from the face of God. But there is a clue in his lament. He also laments being driven away from the ground. Cain loved the ground and the work of his hands as much if not more than he loved God. In the end Cain wanted God's approval and acceptance on his own terms. He was not willing to come to God on God's terms. Abel came wanting God so much that he was willing to do what God asked and it ended up costing his life yet by it he still speaks. Abel calls us to come to God yielded to whatever God asks of us. I fear that most in the church are like Cain. They want God, perhaps even desperately, but they want Him on their own terms. A life lived like Cain is a life under condemnation by God. We must seek to live like Abel. To live a God focused life we must want God more than anything else, not just God's sanction of what we want.