Come Down, Lord #3 – Needing God

So many people today believe that they get along just fine without God. A pandemic hits and they don’t even think of God. God, they maintain, is an optional extra – good for you, but not for them.

Sadly, we can sometimes live independent from God, as though he doesn’t even exist. Or, we call upon God only when we’re facing a crisis. Or, we think that if we just do our Christian duty, that is good enough.

Mike Smith, a pastor I knew in Minnesota, expressed how our Christian desires can fall short of God’s glory when he said:

• We want to be respectable without being real.

• We want entertainment without involvement.

• We want a relationship without commitment.

• We want the blessing of God without obedience to God.

• We want worship without change.

• We want revival without transformation (and better keep it neat).

• We want dignity, but we lack spiritual desire.

• We settle for religion, and we are without power.

• We want power, but we’re lacking in passion.

• We want beautiful buildings, but we lack broken hearts.

• We want compassion, but we’ve become complacent.

• We want personalities, but we need the person of Jesus.

As Isaiah scans the horizon, he sees God’s people sitting in the wreckage of their shattered lives apart from God. So he pleads for a visitation from God. “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you!” (Isaiah 64:1).

The Lord must be the very center of our lives. And when God comes down, he can do more in a minute with his power than we can in a lifetime with our own efforts.

“Come down, Lord! We’re desperate for you! We need you!”

Action Step: On a Desperation Scale 1-10, one being the lowest sense of desperation and ten the highest, where are you in your desperation for God?

~ Pastor Dave