“for our God is a consuming fire.”
Hebrews 12:
Lately, God
has been telling me to be consumed by who He is. He’s been telling me that as I keep my eyes
on Him and let His great attributes consume me, everything else will fall away,
and I will naturally move towards Him and His heart. A few days ago, I listened to a sermon by
Jennifer Toledo. In the sermon, she
talked about a vision that she had. She
was standing on the shore of a body of water.
As she looked out, she saw Jesus, and He was beckoning her to come out
to Him, to walk on the water. At first,
she started freaking out: “I can’t walk
on water!” But then Jesus told her to stop
focusing on the water and to start focusing on Him. “You’re holy!
You’re beautiful!” She began to
shout out His attributes. As she
continued to describe Jesus, she suddenly realized that she was standing out in
the middle of the water. Without even
knowing what she was doing, she had walked on water. The point of the vision was that as she
became consumed by who Jesus is, her problems fell away, and she naturally
moved towards Him.
As I heard
this vision, God began to speak to me about how I needed to apply this lesson
to my own life. At the time, I had been
going through some spiritual struggles, battling lies, my attitude, apathy,
etc. And I, over those couple of days,
had been focused on my problems. But as
I heard that sermon, I realized that I needed to take the focus off of myself. And so I did.
I focused on who God was, and slowly but surely, I’ve been able to walk
towards Him and let Him take care of my problems.
Here are
all of the attributes of God that I wrote down in my journal on that day.
Who is
God? He is Savior, Father, almighty,
provider, warrior, lover, just, holy, beautiful, awesome, creator, healer, name
above all names, King, Lord, peace, love, alpha and omega, refuge, protector,
unchanging, everlasting, compassionate, merciful, gracious, gentle, powerful,
wisdom, sovereign, redeemer, perfect timing, in control, a good, good father
with a good, good heart, truth, life, the answer, where I can find my identity,
Lion and Lamb, the Great High Priest, friend, worthy of praise, strength,
chain-breaker, freedom-giver, victorious, faithful, patient, slow to anger,
forgiveness.
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face, and the
things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”
