It’s interesting to listen to how people speak about their faith. If you pay attention, you may detect that they speak in a manner of what God has done for them. That’s not wrong. The Bible provides people’s reflections on their encounters with God.
But if we are not careful, viewing our faith through the lens of ourselves—our own experience—can turn our faith self-centered and egocentric. We who live in Western, democratic societies can be very susceptible to this, where we focus on our liberties and treat God as if He exists for our purpose (even if we wrap it in spiritual expressions).
The biblical mind never lost sight of who God is and what our relationship is to Him. “To you I lift up my eyes, O You who are enthroned in the heavens!” God is King. We are His servants. This is proclaimed throughout the Bible. “As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, until He has mercy upon us” (Psalm 123:2, NKJV).
Within the ancient world, the king took care of his servants, and the servants lived to do the will of their king. The Bible views the world in this way. How different would our lives be if we viewed our relationship with God more as a servant to a king, just like the psalmist?
We sometimes yearn for such familiarity with God that we can too easily lose sight of His majesty. In our desire for relationship with Him, we can never assume equality with Him; we can never forget that He is the King, and we serve Him.
As the King of the Universe, He takes care of us. He shows mercy to us. We can cry out to Him for assistance and mercy, but we can never forget the nature of our relationship.
He is a good King; therefore, we can look to Him for mercy. We can look to Him for care and provision. But, as servants, we must always stand ready to do His will, for His will matters more than our own.
PRAYER
Father, You are our King, and we are Your servants. We look for Your mercy, and we live to do Your will. Amen.
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