Summary: Today, I want to discuss how we can recognize God's involvement in our life, and the lives those around us. I want us to see if we can recognize what God is doing, by taking a closer look at the differences between God and us, and better understanding those differences... I believe that when we sift through those differences we can discover God's purpose for us and our world... and we can respond to the things happening around us with more understanding and less confusion... A reminder; The following are my notes from the audio podcast. To get the complete message you must play the recorder above. "The Keys to Hanging Out with God" When do you feel most comfortable with someone? We feel more comfortable the more we know someone... groups... teams... meetings... The more we know and understand about those around us the easier it is for us to socialize with them... The same is true about us feeling comfortable with God and with Christ... Ever notice how uncomfortable people get when you start to talk about Christ? I think we can all agree, God understands us and our ways, but we don't really have any clue about God and His ways? Even to suggest that we understand God, is actually to admit we don't understand Him at all... If we really did understand God and Christ, we wouldn't even begin to imagine that we could comprehend the slightest of their capacities or capabilities. The prophet Isaiah said; Isaiah 55:8-11 I. Key #1 - Recognize Our Position before God; Ground Zero for us to be able to Hang out with God is this... God is the Creator and we are the Creature... I think we forget this... Isaiah wrote; Isaiah 29:16 We don't recognize our position in relationship to the awesomeness of God... We think we're calling the shots... When it comes to God, the creator of everything, we think very differently... In fact, compared to God, do we even have thoughts...? Job said this about God; Job 9:32 When God has a thought, it's already determined, it's planned, and it's accomplished... When we have a thought, we're trying to figure things out... we're not sure... God having a relationship with us is like us having a relationship with a plant... and yet it's not... Our nature and God's nature is not similar at all... The Psalmist wrote; Psalm 103:15&16 So the first key in being able to Hang out with God and Christ is to recognize our position before them... Creator/creature... He's in charge... Get this first!!! He gives us life, not the other way around... To the world God is dead, that's because the world's god is a creation of the world... II. Key #2 - Recognize God's Value's are different than ours; By stating that His ways are so much higher than our ways God is showing the vast distinction in value's between Him and us... It's not just that His ways are better, His ways are on a complete other level... How do we determine the value of something? Supply and Demand... The more there is of something, the less it's worth... On the other hand the less there is of something the more it's worth... But God's value's are much different than ours... God can create an endless supply of everything in our world, so He doesn't need anything from our world... So God's value's have some other point of reference. When Jesus was asked what the "Greatest" ( or most valuable) Commandment was, he said; Matthew 22:36-40 This is something that can't be bought, sold, or manufactured... Love is something that's given freely... God's value's are based upon LOVE... God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to save the world... Christ loved his father and us so much that endured the pain of his death to save us... If we can recognize that everything that God causes to happen in our world is because He loves us, we will begin to see the events and circumstances in our life differently... God loves each one us and He cares about our eternal existence...
