Faith SEEKING GOD FOR THE RIGHT REASON
Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Rev. 15:3.
Do you realize how fairly God has been conducting this great controversy? Do you realize that the day is going to come when every knee is going to bow, and every tongue confess that God has been fair and just? Even Satan is going to kneel down and admit that God has never overstepped Himself.
You can almost see it as you read the description in the book The Great Controversy. You can almost see Satan himself lifted up above the rest of the millions of people who are meeting for the first and last time. And they look, and say, "Is this the man that made the nations to tremble and opened not his prison house?" There, before God's throne and the Holy City, Satan, by his own choice, goes to his knees and admits that God has been fair. Then he hates himself for it, and rushes to do battle.
In order for God to be proved fair and just before the universe, there are times when He sees that it will be best to allow Satan to have his way in bringing trouble to us for a time. And often Satan is correct in claiming that we were seeking God only for what we hoped to gain from Him, and that if things were to stop going smoothly, we would stop seeking God.
"We are often led to seek Jesus by the desire for some earthly good; and upon the granting of our request we rest our confidence in His love. The Saviour longs to give us a greater blessing than we ask; and He delays the answer to our request that He may show us the evil of our own hearts, and our deep need of His grace. He desires us to renounce the selfishness that leads us to seek Him. Confessing our helplessness and bitter need, we are to trust ourselves wholly to His love."--The Desire of Ages, p. 200.
When we understand this, we will understand why Satan comes at us with all his guns blazing when we begin a relationship with God, and we will also understand why God has to let him. God is big enough to keep him from it. But in order to be fair, God has to let him work. As we see our problem and choose to come to Jesus day by day regardless of what happens, we will find the grace of heaven to change our selfish motives, and to enable us to seek Jesus for the right reasons.
Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Rev. 15:3.
Do you realize how fairly God has been conducting this great controversy? Do you realize that the day is going to come when every knee is going to bow, and every tongue confess that God has been fair and just? Even Satan is going to kneel down and admit that God has never overstepped Himself.
You can almost see it as you read the description in the book The Great Controversy. You can almost see Satan himself lifted up above the rest of the millions of people who are meeting for the first and last time. And they look, and say, "Is this the man that made the nations to tremble and opened not his prison house?" There, before God's throne and the Holy City, Satan, by his own choice, goes to his knees and admits that God has been fair. Then he hates himself for it, and rushes to do battle.
In order for God to be proved fair and just before the universe, there are times when He sees that it will be best to allow Satan to have his way in bringing trouble to us for a time. And often Satan is correct in claiming that we were seeking God only for what we hoped to gain from Him, and that if things were to stop going smoothly, we would stop seeking God.
"We are often led to seek Jesus by the desire for some earthly good; and upon the granting of our request we rest our confidence in His love. The Saviour longs to give us a greater blessing than we ask; and He delays the answer to our request that He may show us the evil of our own hearts, and our deep need of His grace. He desires us to renounce the selfishness that leads us to seek Him. Confessing our helplessness and bitter need, we are to trust ourselves wholly to His love."--The Desire of Ages, p. 200.
When we understand this, we will understand why Satan comes at us with all his guns blazing when we begin a relationship with God, and we will also understand why God has to let him. God is big enough to keep him from it. But in order to be fair, God has to let him work. As we see our problem and choose to come to Jesus day by day regardless of what happens, we will find the grace of heaven to change our selfish motives, and to enable us to seek Jesus for the right reasons.
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