Sunday, January 6, 2008

How to Impress God

Have you every wanted to impress God? Have you thought about what you can do that would impress God? Can we impress him with our offerings? Our money already belongs to him. Can we impress him with our service? Perhaps, but it is so easy for us to fail in our service to the Lord. There is an account in the Bible that shows a person that God seems to be impressed with and it is in one of the most unlikely places.

Do you remember reading about King Ahab? If you don’t remember, he was the guy who was married to Jezebel. He was an evil guy. In describing him, the Bible states, “there was none like unto Ahab, who sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord.” (I Kings 21:25 KJ21) In other words, not only was he a bad guy, he was a very bad guy. There had never been a king as bad as he was.

One of the things that he did was that when Naboth refused to sell his vineyard, he had him killed in a very public and very gruesome fashion. If you read I Kings 21, you will see that it was actually Jezebel who did this, but she did it with Ahab’s knowledge, in his name and used his seal to do it. Ahab may not have gotten his hands dirty, but he was all for it.

The result of all of this was that the Lord sent Elijah to talk to Ahab, while Ahab was still in Naboth’s vineyard, taking possession of it. Through Elijah, the Lord tells Ahab, because you did this the dogs are going to lick your blood in the place where the dogs licked Naboth’s blood. Your sons will be killed and your family will be cut off. Jezebel will be killed and eaten by the dogs. Everyone in your family will either be eaten by dogs or eaten by birds. God didn’t hold any punches on this one. Ahab had gone too far and God told him that it was over.

We later see that what God said would happen is exactly what happened, but in the last part of I Kings 21 we see that Ahab humbled himself before the Lord. He rent his clothes, put on sackcloth and he fasted. Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah and God says, “Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days; but in his son’s days will I bring the evil upon his house.”

In reading that, doesn’t it seem like God is taping Elijah on the shoulder and saying, “you’ve got to take a look at this. Look what Ahab has done.” It is similar to the statement that God mad about Job. Ahab impressed God. One of the most evil men the world has ever seen impressed God by humbling himself. Because God was impressed, Ahab was allowed to live for a while longer and he didn’t see any of his sons or Jezebel die during that time. All of that happened after Ahab’s death.

To me this says that the surest way to impress God is by humbling ourselves before him. Even an evil man like Ahab was able to impress God by humbling himself. Nothing impresses God more than when we have the proper attitude toward him. That is only possible when we humble ourselves before him. That is why that Satan, with all of his beauty and power, is unable to impress God, but sinful human who is on his knees can.

7 comments :

Anonymous said...

I am not a christian, but feel very strong emotionally after I read this ...
what a wonderfull thought impress "god by being humble". ...
if atleast 1 out of 10 is humble towards the other human being,
I am sure we might help contribute towards world's peace ....

Timothy Fish said...

Vandu,

I agree that part of the reason why we do not have world peace is because we try to lift ourselves up above other people rather than being humble towards our fellow man. One thing we must remember, though, is that only God can bring true world peace. It is human nature for us to fail and do bad to other people. No matter how hard we try to stay humble, we will mess up and do things we shouldn't. God has promised that the day will come when those who trust him will no longer have that problem.

Dj GeOrGiE said...

Georgie Lobo

I truly believe in what ever yo have said "TO BE HUMBLE TO GOD TO IMPRESS HIM"

Carl Fernandes from Mumbai , India said...

Hi Timothy , U have really given me an eye opener I thought I was real nice guy who really loved Jesus a lot but sadly I see I have a lot of pride in me , thanks once again will try to be more humble in the future.Woudl surely appreciate some verses from The Holy Bible where I could learn some humility from the Lord. God Bless you my friend Jesus really Rocks.Amen.

Anonymous said...

Quick question:

How could we stop impressing God? I asked because I was told " You don't have to impress God, he loves you just the way you are."

Thanks
JC

Timothy Fish said...

JC,

While it is true that God loves us no matter what, that doesn't mean he likes all that we do. Instead of thinking in terms of what it takes to convince God to love us (which we can't do), think in terms of what it takes for God to be proud of us. Think of a father who loves his children, no matter what, but he is more proud of the son that cleans his room and is polite to other people than he is of the one who tracks mud all over the house.

Dale O'Neal said...

Thank You for the opst and article. God Bless.