“The first rule of success is that there is nothing on the outside that can compensate for a feeling of failure on the inside. External accouterments of success — from armored limousines to an army of personal bodyguards — can never protect you from the din of demons who whisper to you that for all you have achieved you are still a big zero.”
That was just one powerful quote from a recent article published in the Huntington Post entitled “Why Powerful Men Can’t Keep Their Pants On.” The Article made an attempt to wrap the mind around the mystery of adulterous human behavior. Why do men like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and Tiger Woods trade their reputations as successful and outstanding men for the reputation of an unfaithful and uncommitted failure of a husband? That is, succeeding in business, politics, or professionalism yet failing in the home. Guarding their business yet throwing away the family. If there ever was a badge for failure, harming those whom you should love the most would be it. It is often the case that men and women succeed in their pursuit of the worlds riches, attaining them all and yet are all together unsatisfied, miserable, and discontented. Having achieved family, wealth and prestige and yet still longing for more of what cannot seem to be attained.
The Bible tells us that “There is a way that seemsright to a man, but its end is the way to death (Proverbs 14:12).” I love what Augustine had to say about the pursuit of man: “Thou hast prompted him, that he should delight to praise thee, for thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.” Man is restless until he finds his true peace in the God who made him. God is spirit and we are made in His likeness. We too are spiritual and that is where our greatest longing lies; in the spirit. Our hunger for more is a spiritual hunger often unrealized. We are after God and He is after us and we will find no rest until we find ourselves at rest with our Savior: Jesus.
Stop pursuing the greener grass and start pursuing your God. He satisfies the longing of your soul by freeing you from the longing after things, whatever they may be: reputation, job, money, sex… the list goes on. Your identity will not rest until you find yourself at rest with God. Being identified with Him frees us from needing to be identified with or by anything else. Idols bog us down, making us miserable because they are temporal just like our flesh, but God is eternal as is our spirit and He alone makes our spirit soar with joy and delight and meaning that lives beyond this life into eternity.
So the reason why so many are unsatisfied with this world is because this world was not created to be our satisfaction. God meant to be Himself, satisfaction for us. God loves you and asks you to turn from living for yourself and to finally and forever find your satisfaction in Him…
You can access Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s full article from the Huntington Post that I refer to here:
The last we spoke, our ordinary man, Isaiah stood in awe and fear before the throne of God. The posts were shaken, the room filled with smoke, and the seraphim cried, “holy holy holy!”. Wow! Can you remember the mood: quite serious, fearful, and humble. If you did some homework and read the entirety of the chapter you would have heard the rest of the prophets cry: ” I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips…”
I am a man; defiled, is Isaiah’s cry; I am a nasty sinner; in our own plain language. Forget any temptation to believe that you have been reading a fairy tale or bedtime story. It is the trickery of time and the craftiness of our enemy to dull our faith by convincing us to read through the Bible as if it were only some book, when the Lord would have us experience Him through its true and living words and events. Do not be fooled, Isaiah was a real man: flesh and blood, body and spirit; full of emotion and feeling… just like you and me. A real man, before the presence of the Almighty! Now, maybe you can relate in some small way, at least in your humanity: desperate for redemption; longing for peace; needy for salvation; but lost in sin and among a people gross with the like. I know I can relate. But relation does not stop there…
Though lost in the deepest pits of despair; tainted by every sin imaginable, a man humbled himself and like Job, repented in dust and ashes (job 42:6). Though relatable to our hero, I am not talking about Isaiah anymore, I am talking about me. Can you relate? Have you been there? I have learned something great from the Lord; that He, in His awesomeness can create beauty from ashes. The best place on earth I have ever been, has been on my knees, being resuscitated, filled and most importantly, forgiven. Though men fall down as dead before the presence of The King, They shall be revived, called, and empowered to go! That’s why I said above that relation does not stop at fear and trembling, but like Isaiah, our souls have been touched by hot coals and our spirits brought to life by His life giving spirit. In our humility, we have been forgiven all our sins and by the power and glory of HIS life giving grace we may now enter into the most holy place with great boldness (Heb 4:16), knowing that our great forgiver desires to be our able and willing empowerer.
Dear friend, maybe you feel powerless? maybe you feel sinful, wicked, and completely unworthy? Maybe you have fallen before the Lord and feel unable to get back up? condemned? Maybe you have been drowning in legalism and pharisitical-religious-idioticy (i have been there)? Are you face to the ground and overwhelmed? Allow me to encourage you to stop listening to the voice of condemnation. Stop striving in your own flesh. I implore you, stay where you are, strive no more. Remain face to the ground. Be quiet. Be still and hear the voice of the Almighty calling you by name… He hears your cry and He sees your state. He comes to you out of the dust and ashes, hot coal in hand. Allow Him to purify your soul. He will cleanse you of all sin and wash you from all uncleanness. The rumors are true: our God is a consuming fire. Rest in that fire and be cleansed for eternity.
Amazing… The same God to be feared is the God who forgives… The God who humbles is the God who exalts… When we are weak He is strong… When we are faithless, He remains faithful… Though we be a weak, sinful people, He in His love and Grace offers strength and purity. Though we be ordinary, He is a God of the extraordinary. Its seems to me, that our God is in the business of taking ordinary men and women and empowering them to do the seemingly impossible. May i challenge you? His business has not gone bankrupt! He is the same yesterday today and forever. Its time to get over ourselves and to forget about our insufficiencies. He has given us grace upon grace! Where are the redeemed who will trust in faith that our God will be faithful and strong on their behalf just as He has been since Genesis 1:1? Do you not have the strength? the time? the words? the status? the list goes on… He has more than enough of all the above and more. In His grace He offers the Strength that you do not deserve. He gives the power by HIS Spirit that you do not have nor deserve and so on and so forth. This is His grace toward you daily. Though you be a single man prostrate on the floor of the temple of God, He will raise you up, forgive you your sin and call you out….
“who will go for Me? Who shall I send?”
The Lord, He calls. Who will answer His call?
“Lord, Help us to remember Your strength and favor toward us and to remember that we are only men. It is not by our strength but by Your Spirit. Thank You Lord. Amen.”
“And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.
And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.
And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the LORD hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out.” 1 Kings 13:1-3
Imagine if you will, the King, before his pagan alter. He has been entrusted by God with the house of Israel and all the people therein. And he is in complete rebellion and sin, and not only himself but his sin is leading a nation into sin.
Oh that we might understand the consequences and effects of our sinful actions upon others. Like a killer plague and virus does our sin spread to others and through the body of Christ if it is not repented of and severed from our body’s quick as day. And in King Jeroboams rebellion, right before the alter, ready to burn incense before all of Israel and a multitude of false priests, prophets and misled Israelites comes the word of the Lord, once again, out of the mouth of His prophet.
It will not be long in your rebellion before the Lord brings a word to you, straight from heaven, sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel to pierce your heart and bring you to your senses. For God loves His people and He is always willing to set you aright, that you may continue on the blessed path of knowing Him. But not all will heed the word of the prophet. Many choose to walk on their own continually, reaping what they sow in rebellion, only to the destruction of their own flesh and sadly others. Jeroboam would not repent and in his rebellion would bring upon himself a withered hand (healed by the grace of God), a humiliated wife and the death of his son and the death of all of his family. There is a great lesson to be learned from the life of Jeroboam. It is a lesson leading to life and peace should we heed its warning. I find in this story an exhortation to fall in love with the Lord, putting Him first in all our lives. He must be allowed access and full reign into all our being. Allow Christ to guard not only your body but allow Him your mind as well. There is rest in Christ for the believer today. Rest from fear and doubt and the works of the flesh. And rescue from ourselves should we choose to submit to the Lord and accept all of His amazing benefits and glory. For in a life, submitted to Him, His plan, and for His glory alone, we will find and be filled with perfect peace and be able to say along with good king David:
“…The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my savior; thou savest me from violence.
I will call on the LORD, who is worthy to be praised…”
2 Samuel 22:1-4
They honestly state, “I cannot believe in what is unseen.”
“I have no faith toward God, because I cannot see Him with my eye.”
And yet without reserve, doubting, they place their measure of faith in what is seen.
“Unless I can see it, it will not satisfy.”
The faith of disbelief in God is placed elsewhere.
You might say:
“I faith what I feel.”
“If I feel it, I believe it. If I taste, touch, hear or see it, I accept it.”
“If I can argue for it, or reason through it, than surely I would give my life for it.”
As people, we mostly believe that it is a satisfying thing to be able to see the object of our affections. But if you can see what you place your hope in, yet draw no joy from it, there is no pleasure in the seen thing at all. I have found most often that the seen things are the empty things – the letdowns in the end. We looked to be fulfilled and yet fulfilled we are not.
Empty we come to our table and there find no fullness at all – only the same old desire unfulfilled. And so we are on the hunt.
Searching to be satisfied.
Our hearts are beating for a single treasure.
The desire of man is probing the pleasures of life – hoping – expecting by faith, and panting for calm in a world full of storm. The desire of man is to be satisfied, and yet seeing, we are still wanting. And hearing many things, we are still deaf to the answer. Seeing the objects of our faith, most of us are unmoved. I don’t mean that we are not accepted or are without some definition or meaning or purpose, but I mean that we are left unaffected. Untouched by our roaming faith.
Money is the god of some and yet though they move money, money does not move them. I can change my surroundings or possessions with money but money cannot speak to me, comfort me, hear my cries and relieve my anxieties. It cannot bring relief and companionship to the lonely heart.
Sex is the god of many. All effort, emotion, and mind are consumed with this act or vision. Faith in the groped-for fleeting satisfaction of fornication. Yet we are untouched or fulfilled by sex. Though moving in sex, though moving from one partner to another in this act, we are not moved by it in heart. Satisfied but for a moment only, and then the moment passes. Lasting satisfaction is lacking because sex satisfies mostly the body but for a moment then, it is fleeting. The body is left hungering only for more but without being truly and lastingly pleased.
Dreams,
Degrees,
Education,
Self-worth,
Popularity,
Praise,
Heroism…
And the list could go on.
We are searching for contentment.
The mind and body are hungry for meaning, but what if man is more than just body and mind? Though what is seen is natural, what if in what lies beyond the “eyes-seen” world is where we are only satisfied? In the seemingly unnatural?
Though men move naturally toward satisfaction and self-worth, they are not moved by what they grope for.
What if the seen does not satisfy because the unseen in man hungers for the ultimate satisfying treasure – worth that cannot fade away. Love that is not fleeting. Purpose that lasts beyond this life – beyond time. The treasures that we know – the felt treasures are all effective for only a moment of pleasure. But what is unseen is unaffected by material treasures. The spirit of man that lives beyond this temporal life is yearning to be satisfied by the unseen – the spiritual. The body is possessed by spirit, and knowing that the body is rotting, the spirit is longing for its maker – the creator and satisfier of all things.
Your need and my need is spiritual, not fleshly.
Not worldly, but godly.
Reality is, that the body is dead without the spirit and the spirit is dead without God.
Long ago, God breathed His very breath into a pile of dust and brought man to life. His breath became our source of life and we are as His creation, longing to breath from the source once again. Satisfaction awaits but only at the fountainhead. You, being created in the image of God, who is Spirit, are longing to be touched by the God who formed you. To truly be moved by that which you place your faith in.
God moves me.
I am moved by Him.
He is moving in me.
Gushing out brilliantly.
Over and under, in, through and out of the deepness of my heart, spirit, mind and emotions.
I have searched the world over and have found only sweet, fulfilling satisfaction in Him alone. His Spirit lives in me and I am supremely satisfied in Him!
I have not seen Him with the eye but have experienced Him with the heart and deep into my spirit, which He has made alive. And in knowing Him, I am complete and satisfied in mind, heart and faith.
There are those who even see with the eye and still do not believe. But I have heard His still and small voice whispering to my spirit, calling me to be in Him complete and there be completely satisfied.
I am a faith-walker – needing not sight but knowing Him through the experience of His touch upon my life. He has lit the path of life and inflamed my heart to burn for Him. He walks upon the landscape of my soul, and in heaven, though here on earth I now walk with Him in pleasure forevermore.
My desires are for Him alone.
He changes me,
Renews me,
Makes me whole, therefore I am wholly His.
I have been delivered up to my God for His good pleasure. I am a sacrifice upon the alter of allurement. I have tasted and now see. I am lured by His immeasurable grace toward me. He is the hunter, I am His prey, and I have been caught by the one who only wholly loves me and cares for my soul. I am pleased to be trapped by His love. This is the result of his affections toward me and my experience of faith in Him.
He is a God to be experienced, not intellectually beheld.
But you must run after Him! Searching and calling after Him to be found, and there, you will no doubt be found by Him. But faith is an action as well as a reality, and the reality and faith-filled Creator of faith is longing to be your desire and object of faith.
Yet as we know, reality is often tested.
But know this my friend, the God of reality will be found as real as life and more powerful than death come the end of your life. And there, in that moment, having not experienced Him here you will surely never know Him there.
Are you experiencing your God, or just reading about Him? The seen does not satisfy because we were meant to be other-worldly.
Our unseen spirit is most greatly delighted when enraptured by His Spirit – seen with the spiritual eye.
Come boldly before your God today and experience Him in all of His glory. Let Him blow your mind. See Him and be seen by Him with Fresh eyes.
J.N.Wheels 