What God loves

This morning I began thinking about yesterday's service, and I found myself, once again, thinking about God: thinking about what God loves. It's no secret to anyone around me that I seek God's approval. I live before a unique audience.

So I was thinking about how full the service was—not with people, not yet—but with life, with God. We could have gone on for a long time; it was so rich. We are constantly amazed by this almost palpable presence of God experienced in our meetings. And this morning, I felt as if I had grasped something of what David must have felt when he cried out desperately to God, 'cast me not away from your presence, take not your Holy Spirit from me.' A life, a church without the presence of the Holy Spirit is a desert, a solitude with terrible howls. Which makes me think, then, at length, about what church consists of, about the kind of atmosphere God likes, and about the kind of people He likes to be around.

Fortunately, nothing to do with the rites or the paraphernalia, we have little of that. The apostles too, by the way. They had neither a 100-time award-winning praise band, nor breathtaking graphics, nor a degree in theology from the finest schools. In fact, when they were summoned before the authorities for 'illegal practice of medicine' (a slightly humorous perspective on the situation), we are told that the authorities looked at them and saw them as uneducated, without theological knowledge; but they noted that they had been with Jesus.

Great encouragement for me and my little gang; I think it's safe to say that not one of us seems tailor-made for this endeavor, least of all me, but I keep thinking and telling them that it's probably not seeming to be what's needed that's our greatest asset. Perhaps if we too were to spend a lot of time with Jesus, he would continue to rub off on us. Perhaps if we were to live daily in the sweet atmosphere of his presence, we would bring him to others, and when we all gather to worship him, we would know a greater measure of his presence. Perhaps it is by recognizing that my help comes from the Lord, and by celebrating God the Holy Spirit, that we find what we are looking for.

So this would be one of the things that God loves, people who sincerely appreciate Him, who like to spend time with Him, and He repays them. Yet I know that we are aboard a ship of discovery on a journey as long as life itself. My brother Paul is urging the church in Ephesus and through it the church in Paris to discover what pleases God, and until my last breath, I will remain aboard this ship, because when God shows up…