Lift Him Up

THIS WEEK has been a really beautiful one for me. I walked on a forest trail on a field trip to San Felasco and took pictures. I saw prayers answered for such various things as a parking space and an idea for the model I'm building for Tuesday. I got to take up the shield of faith in response to a couple "flaming darts."

I'm especially becoming more aware of the call to "go." You know, the great commission to go and make disciples of all nations. Right now I'm in a campus that's bigger than many cities are, and much more diverse. The whole world is here. It's overwhelming sometimes. The desire is increasing in my heart to spread the love and not keep it to myself. But how?

On Thursday night I was at CRU, the Campus Crusade for Christ, and during worship I had one of those great revelations, the kind that only comes during worship. We were singing "Let Your name be lifted higher, be lifted higher, be lifted higher!" And it came to me.

Why do we lift God up? To glorify His name, right? Yes, that's why. But I think there's another reason too, because we have two purposes here. We lift God up higher and higher so that people all around can see Him. That way, they can lift Him up too. That's how we spread the love of God.

Carrying the message of God to other people, BOTH near AND far, is something each of us has necessarily been called to do. We don't want to just glorify God. We want to get other people to glorify Him too - to multiply His glory on earth. God doesn't need our help with this. In His word in Psalm 19 (one of my favorites) verse 1 says "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork." The very Creation of God is for His glory, and it's evidence to us of His glory so that we can see He is worthy of our worship.

I can definitely attest to the message of that verse from what I saw at San Felasco. I found a perfect green garden snake with a bright pink tongue, draped over a bush full of yellow flowers. I saw vines twisting in fantastic loops and thin trees curved in perfect arches. On the ground there were tiny bugs with a million legs and leaves as colorful as stained glass windows. There was the sun falling into the streams and mossy trees rising up from the earth. The air was perfectly cool and the place was fully alive. I could feel God's presence when I looked at the product of His creativity.

Yet in Romans 2 Paul describes humanity's reaction to all that in verses 20-22:

"[20] For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His external power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, [21] because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. [22] Professing to be wise, they became fools."

This was true then, and it's true now. But God doesn't scoff and walk away. He won't make us love Him, and He will stand aside when we choose against Him, but He wants His children to come home. All of them.

The more we come to know how much He loves us, how passionately and unrelentingly His love endures, the more we will want other people to know.

When I had a boyfriend, I remember that he was on my mind and in my conversation more often than I'd like to admit. I remember that I really enjoyed talking about him, almost as much as I liked talking to him. That shows something about the way our hearts work. We want to talk about what we really love. We don't want to be the only ones made happy by what we love. It should be that way with God. When we love God so much, get so preoccupied with His glory and His will and His dreams and His goodness, that we don't want to keep him to ourselves, we won't keep Him to ourselves. That's lifting Him up for all to see.

We shouldn't be scared to let somebody know we're praying for them if we believe our good God wants to answer. We shouldn't worry that people will think less of us for expressing our faith in Him, because what matters is what He thinks, and He thinks that kind of talk will bring Him glory and be a good testimony. Some won't like it, but some will want what we have. And won't it be wonderful when they find out they can have Him for free!

Speaking about His imminent crucifixion, Jesus said in John 12:32 "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself." Since He was lifted from the earth on the cross, His word has been preached on all continents and He has drawn countless thousands to Himself. Let's continue to lift Him up and watch how His compelling love will draw in this world that' hungry and thirsty for the grace we've received.