Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Do you disagree with God?

We may think that things with God and us are, in the words of the young Forest Gump, “just just fine and dandy.”  However, God may have something to say about that. 
 
Romans 10:9 says if we believe from the bottom of our heart to the tip of our tongue, that is, confess that Jesus God raised Jesus from the dead (Jesus lives as the Savior of humankind) that you will be saved.  Who could disagree with such a sweet deal?  It sounds easy but not so fast. 

 
I’d like to think that I fully agree with how God loves me and proved it through Jesus.  However, if I were really honest, I’d have to say many of the ways I go about living this trusted-truth in my life, may have a few ticks on the disagreement side of the ledger! 
 
 
To truly trust God is to agree with Him not only in our hearts but also by what we say.  If we confess that God proves his unconditional love for us by saving us in Christ, yet live and act in ways that do not agree with our trust statement -- aka confession -- we fall into the precarious position of disagreeing with God.  It's hard to trust some one who you don't agree with! 
 
 
Confess in the Greek literally means “to say the same thing.”  In other words, the heart and the mouth are in union – an agreement so trusting and tight that not even a light sliver of light could pass between.  So to “confess” Jesus essentially means we are saying the same thing as God -- we are in agreement with God. But are we really? 

In some Arab countries, there is a saying that if you trust someone, you should give that person your breath (hopefully after a tic-tac). “In other words, there is no space between people who trust; no light shines between trustees who share personal space.” 

Just how tight are we with God?  How much of our lives are really “in agreement with God?” It’s hard to admit, but we disagree with God far more than we might like to admit or are even aware.  Because, in many ways, our hearts and voices and actions really don’t say the same thing as God!

In this Sunday’s message will continue our series on “Trusting God From the Bottom Up” by asking how our lives might look and feel if how we trust God from the bottom of our heart not only agrees with what we confess with our lips, but also with God?