Coram Deo

Our lives are ever in the eyes of God and should be lived for the glory of God.   #daybydaylw   Interested in learning more about becoming a devoted follower of Christ? Go to follow.lifeword.org!   ~~~   My job as a pastor is to do my very best in explaining God’s word to you, which reveals His character, His plan, His kingdom, and to expose to you the implications and applications that God’s word holds for your life and my life. I am not an authoritarian over you, forcing you to act or think a certain way. My word is not the last word. However, Christ exercises His authority through the church. And my job is to exhort you, as professed Christians, who claim that Christ is King, to heed God’s inspired word. We are to understand the Bible, not as a book full of antidotes, or little McNugget gems of wisdom for your personal and private life in order for you to be happy, but rather as the revealing of all that God desires for us to know about Himself, and how God has chosen to execute redemption for a fallen race, and how He brings holiness into the life of those He redeems. His word is the authority! His Son lived perfectly under His authority; He Son died and rose again to dispel all doubt about the veracity of God’s word; God’s Spirit convicts us of this authority, and convinces us of His authority, and the church is the institution, the organism where we display together the beauty and unity and harmony of marriages, and homes, ministries and relationships when they dwell under God’s authority. This will undoubtedly bring friction into your life. The more you find yourself submitted to the anthem of “Christ is King,” the more you are joyfully following the rule of Jesus in your life in a biblically pronounced way, then the more resentment, the more pushback, the more ridicule you will face from the constituency of the world, from those who live according to another kingdom, with a different ruler. Sometimes that constituency is a talking head on television, and sometimes it is a spouse. But we must be reminded that we are to live “before the LORD.” This is the recurring phrase, the dominant phrase in 2 Samuel 6:16-23. You will notice the phrase, “Before the LORD,” 5 times (14, 16,17, 21a, 21b) and this phrase is used in contrast to Michal’s accusation that David danced “before the eyes of his servants’ servants.” We are to be ever mindful that our lives are to be lived “Coram Deo” before the face of God, under the authority of God, in the presence of God, within the penetrating gaze of God, to the glory of God. And we should seek to live our lives in a way that shows we want, we strive, to live Coram Deo. All of life being centered around God is living coram deo.