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St. Augustine once wrote that the main problem with humanity is our disordered loves. Our misdirected desires. Our disoriented passions. Human beings were created perfect, made in God’s own image, each man, woman and child bears His likeness. In the Garden at the dawn of time, we experienced perfect fulfillment. Complete satisfaction. True joy. Nothing threatened our peace because all our passions and desires were directed towards pleasing God. We loved Him with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. From this intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father flowed every blessing. Then sin entered the world. Sin wrecked us at a foundational level. Psalm 51 says we are conceived in sin and born in iniquity. This brokenness exists on a cellular level. Everyone’s life has a center. Our center is the hub around which all decisions revolve. One claim about which there is substantial consensus is that meaningfulness is not all or nothing and instead comes in degrees, such that some periods of life are more meaningful than others and that some lives as a whole are more meaningful than others. For some, survival is the hub from morning until night. In the Bible we don’t see God asking people to dream up what they want to do for God. The pattern is to submit, wait, watch and then join him. "But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God" Acts 20:24 (NKJV).
A God-centered life consists of loving God and loving others completely. When we walk with God and obey the Bible, we live our lives God-centered and no longer prioritize ourselves. We instead value the things God values.
We can slip into being self-centered when we lose our love for God and other people. But how do you know when you’re living a self-centered life? It’s possible that we can be unaware or have a hard time admitting the ways that we are living to please ourselves. Our goals for experiencing God, basically to know and do the will of God:
1. We must deny ourselves and return to a God-centered life.
2. We must reorient our life to God.
3. We must focus my life on God’s purposes and not our own plans.
4. We must seek to see from God’s perspective rather than from our own distorted human perspective.
5. We must wait until God shows us what he is about to do through us.
6. We must watch to see what God is doing around us and join Him.
"When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” Mark 8:34 (NKJV).
For others, the acquisition of wealth or material goods drives daily choices. In many Western cultures, the center of life is pleasure-seeking, gained through entertainment and sexual deviations of every sort. But a God-centered life is one that revolves around the character of God. Decisions are made from within that center, based upon that which pleases or displeases God. A God-centered person has found that the pursuit of God is life’s highest calling. Earthly enticements lose much of their attraction for someone who has been in the presence of the Lord God Almighty. Attitudes, desires, and relationships are altered by that encounter, and the Word of God becomes a lifeline. A God-centered life is marked by the fruit of the Holy Spirit. These are not personality traits that we can “work on”; they are called “fruit of the Spirit” because, as a fruit tree naturally produces fruit, a life that is fully surrendered to God naturally produces godly qualities. "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being" 1 Corinthians 10:23-24 (NKJV).
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