This is my Occupation and Career: To Know Him

Something I have been pondering as of lately is the numerous questions I always get about what you are going to do with your life, what your profession will be, what your occupation will be, or what your career will be. If you think about it, this is almost the question used to define who you are according to our culture or the questions used to judge who you are.

But the more I live and pursue God, I can't let these kind of questions define who I am and nor will they define who I am. I'm going to say something right now that a lot of people don't like to hear or almost get offended by, or think your crazy and too radical. I honestly don't care what my career, profession, or occupation will be because the way the world sees it, is not how I see it. This is my occupations: to know God and to fall in love with Him all the days of my life. My career is to seek to know Jesus and live in relationship with him through the Holy Spirit. This is my first life goal and my only, because everything else comes out of knowing who He is. When you see it like this, you don't have the stresses and worries that the world gets sucked into like these questions that bother us and keep us up at night: who am I? who am I going to marry? what career am I going pursue and focus on? will I be successful? will I make enough money? will it even matter? do I even matter? what is life supposed to be? do people even like me? what will they think of me? and on and on....When your eyes are on Jesus, you know the answer to all of these questions because your worth, value, and destiny are in Him.

What I am talking about is not just a rational knowledge of what God is like or who he is. I mean a knowledge of God that transcends all understanding and all knowledge. I mean to actually know the living God and walk with Him. I mean to be radically lost and found in Him considering all things loss and rubbish for the sake of knowing Jesus. If the knowledge of God that we understand doesn't transform and change our lives like it did the apostles, then we haven't gotten it fully yet. I believe there is so much more to this life and so much more in our relationships with God than what we have thought possible. The living God is alive and we are sons because Jesus has torn the veil. The Holy Spirit is inside us teaching us and speaking to us and leading us. The Holy Spirit still acts like He did before the creation of the world and like he did when He was poured out on to the first disciples. If we truly believe this, let us let go of all things for the sake of knowing Him. This is the cry of my heart. This is what I was made for.

Jesus is my King, my God, my Lord, my Teacher, my Savior, my Everything! And he died to set me free and He is alive to lead me in the way I shall go. I don't just say these as mere words and doctrines. I truly believe this and know this because Jesus has shown me these things himself. I have tried to run from it, seeking my value and pleasure in other things-but they all lead to nothing and left me depressed. I have walked the other way but there is nothing as great as knowing my Lord Jesus Christ! I am convinced that once you know this and get a hold of it, there is nothing in all the world that can separate you from His love. And that even if you try to run from it and go to depths of the sea, to ends of the universe, to the darkest corner, to the ends of the earth, that He will be there. Even if you wanted to give up and run away from God, you couldn't because He is so great and good, and His love has no ends. You were made by Him and for Him, and in Him you find the fullest meaning of life. The God who is Holy and unapproachable has made himself known to us and desires for us to approach him and be found in Him.

Psalms 27 and Philippians 3 are my life goals:

One thing I ask from the LORD, this is only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. -(Psalms 27:4)

My heart says of you, "Seek his face!"
  Your face, LORD, I will seek. -(Psalms 27:8)

"Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. ² Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. ³ For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—⁴ though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

⁷ But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in^[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

¹² Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³ Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵ All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. ¹⁶ Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

¹⁷ Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. ¹⁸ For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹ Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body". -(Philippians 3)

No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." -Romans 8:1-4

This passage in Romans is beautiful to me. As of lately, I have realized that sometimes I forget that I am no longer condemned by God. Sometimes I act like I am condemned, even though I have been redeemed and saved by Jesus.

Let me put this in perspective: I am a believer who wants to live my life serving the one true God. He is the only thing that I want to live for because He has made me fall in love with Him. My major in college is Biblical and Theological Studies. I love studying God's word, and praying, spending time in God's presence, worshiping through music. However, I still fail sometimes to realize that I am saved, redeemed, loved, and that when God looks at me, he doesn't see my sin, but has wiped it away and looks at me with gentleness, kindness, passion, and love. I may know these things in my head, but the fact is sometimes, I fail to really realize it in my heart. And there is such a difference. When I fail to do something that God has called me to do, or I stumble in sin, make bad choices, am consumed with myself and fail to see others needs in front of me, or even believing in lies from satan that I am worthless, not loved by others, don't amount to anything, or that everything I do is a failure, it is so easy to feel condemned and have shame. I am saved and yet I walk around like a failure sometimes. I am made righteous by Christ's blood, yet I stand like I am condemned-like I am the biggest failure on the face of the earth. But, if I look at God's word and what He has done for me, the Spirit testifies with my Spirit that I am a child of God and a co-heir with Christ (Romans 8:16-17). And that there is nothing in all creation that can separate me from the love of God (Romans 8:37-39). I don't have to walk around feeling accused and like God is not with me or for me because God is so for me and with me. His promises remain true for eternity. God loves me and loves everyone. I am saved by grace as a free gift from God. When God looks at me now, he doesn't see my sin because Jesus wiped them away with His blood on the cross. Jesus has stood in the gap and now I stand alive and new in Him. I must remind myself of this gift everyday. We are victorious in Christ. I don't have to get it all right, though my heart is to be obedient. But, I want to be obedient because I AM loved by God and I love Him, NOT because I am worrying that God doesn't love me and NOT by trying to earn His love out of being obedient. There is freedom in Christ, to live in love with Him.

Yet, this never gives me or anyone else an excuse to sin because of the free gift of grace. For God is continually at work in our hearts, through the Holy Spirit, to get rid of things that bring destruction to our lives, through sanctification. We never have an excuse to keep on sinning or to use our freedom to indulge in the flesh (Galatians 5:13 and 1Peter 2:16). But as I continue to pursue God and seek Him, He will show me the things to get rid of and things He is calling me to do, and His grace will not only wipe my sin away but give me the strength to overcome them. This is a love relationship with our God and we get to stand as redeemed people, confident in God's love for us and with a spirit of radical obedience to the one who loves us.

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." -Romans 8:1-4

God is faithful, the devil is not!

So many times when we have trouble in this life, we are so quick to blame God. We are so quick to be mad at God. Things like the unexpected loss of loved ones, bad relationships, hurt, depression, addictions, loneliness. And the list goes on... We ask God and yell at God, "why me! how could an all good and loving God let this happen to me, my family, or friends? Don't you care God? Don't you love me?" But, we must realize that even in these questions, we are deceived. As people who claim to follow Christ, have we forgotten the reason why humanity fell and why we have death, addictions, and bad relationship in the first place? Is it not the deceiver (SATAN) who tempted humanity, and we let him walk all over us, giving him authority over us? Have we forgotten that evil and bad in this world is caused by him? We are so quick to blame God and get mad at him and walk away, all the while Satan is sitting there innocent because we don't even recognize his wicked works. We have put God in the place where Satan belongs, even when God gave his only Son for us. We shouldn't be mad at God! We should be mad at the devil for he is the one who brings evil! Satan is the one to be blamed and accused, for he has been proven guilty! God is faithful! Make war with the real enemy, the devil.

"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings" -1 Peter 5:8-9

 "He (the devil) was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." -John 8:44-45