Beholding

I recently listened to a sermon on "Beholding the Beauty of the Bible." One of the initial points that caught my attention was Pastor Ronnie Smith's comment: "We become what we behold." And while I was still chewing on that, he said, "Worldliness kills your capacity to behold the glory of God in the Scriptures."

Enough said. I was convicted and guilty.

Pastor Smith's words provided an explanation, a diagnosis of sorts, for what I was experiencing as I read through Job in the chronological Bible, trying day after day to look forward to Job's friends berating him. But each day, what was pulling at my heart was a desire to do other things, worldly things. Things that won't count for eternity.

But hearing that sermon, I realized that my choice to follow after the worldly desires pulling at my heart is robbing me of much more than I ever thought; it's robbing me of seeing God's glory when I read His Word. That's not something I'm okay with.

Pastor Smith urges that part of the solution is to lay ax to the root of worldliness in your (my) life. I don't know exactly what all that will entail, but I know I want my mind focused more on God's glory than on worldly things. And one way that I can do that is to have music that keeps my mind off worldly things and puts the focus on God.

So lately, I've been listening to Chris Tomlin's newest CD entitled If Our God Is For Us and Hillsong United's song You Hold Me Now. I leave you with a video of the latter; I hope it ministers to you and helps you keep your focus on God's glory.