Day 6 – John 5:19-29

Many times we start off on endeavors that are on God's heart but we often lose focus of God's glory along the way. And if we continue in our passionate pursuit without this focus, it seems that the endeavor becomes more about ourselves than Him.

The "Jews" in the passage referred to the Jewish leaders. They passionately observed the Sabbath laws that represented what they thought were God's will. But Jesus was very clear in many passages throughout the Bible that they were more concerned about their own self-righteouness and glory than true righteousness before God and His glory. Comparing Jesus' ministry versus the Jewish leader's misguided endeavors, I noticed two things that relate to God's glory.

One, there was no fruit of life in their endeavors as in Jesus's works. As we read the passage as a third party observer and with the advantage of hindsight, it seems almost absurd to us that the Jewish leaders would object to Jesus healing a lame person. They were not only objecting to his physical healing, but in effect they were objecting to his life being restored spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and socially. Isn't this the type of fullness of life that God desires for us at least while on this earth, let alone our eternal life with Him? But even if we don't go to the extreme of objecting to good works, when we go about "God's work" without the proper focus, it seems to me that we are masking the life that could have been released for God's glory.

Two, they didn't exemplify God's character as Jesus did. In everything Jesus did, he was imitating God because he did what he saw God doing. With a task-oriented type-A personality, it will be a life-long challenge for me to not get focused soley on the result—to reflect Christ-likeness in the process along the way.

During these 40 days, I want to pay extra attention to being God-centered and how I reflect Christ-likeness in accomplishing what He has for me to do. I am hoping that it will spark a new level of genuine, theo-centric, and powerful ministry in my life. I hope the same for our church in all that God wants us to do. Because ultimately, it speaks to God's glory and He deserves to be represented rightly.