What does it mean to be God-centered?

Now as GOD is the centre of the universe, or else all would be disaster, so unless GOD is the Centre of YOUR life, it will be disaster for YOU. Make no mistake about that.

In our unconverted days self was at the very centre of our thinking; it was the dirty little puddle into which all our trickling streams emptied themselves. Now the stream of our life is no longer to run into the mud-pool of self; it is to flow into the glorious ocean—Christ Himself. God is to be the Object of life to the Christian; even as Paul said, “I am dead to the law, that I might live to God.”

Man, and above all, man having knowledge of good and evil, should have God for his object; and as an object that his heart can entertain with pleasure, and on which his affections can be exercised: otherwise he is lost. The gospel — Christianity — has given him this. God, who fills all things, who is the source of, in whom is centred, all blessing, all good — God, who is all love, who has all power, who embraces everything in His knowledge, because everything (except the forsaking of Himself) is but the fruit of His mind and will — God has revealed Himself in Christ to man, in order that his heart, occupied with Him, with perfect confidence in His goodness, may know Him, may enjoy His presence? and reflect His character.

It is strange, but I suppose it is because we are so largely under the influence of the fleshly mind, that we so persistently keep ourselves in sight, and this well nigh to the exclusion of God. Ourselves, our own blessing, and our own glorification, are often in our minds. The objects to which all the ways of God lead up, and the glory of God, though religiously admitted, is very dimly before our minds. And as we are to such a large extent our own object, we are liable to think we must be God’s object also. In this way we in measure deify ourselves. What Adam grasped at in the beginning (equality with God), seems ingrained in the flesh, and refuses to be expelled. But from this, a merciful and gracious God would deliver us, and give us to see that His own glory and satisfaction must be the end which He has in view in everything that He does. The eternal blessing of the creature who submits with all his heart to the decrees of God is certain, and the everlasting confusion of the rebellious is just as sure. God must be His own Object in everything He does, and this anyone can understand, for when He began His works, (and whatever men may say to the contrary there was a beginning), there was nothing to influence His mind; He wrought from Himself and for His own glory, and “of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things” (Rom. 11:36), and “Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created” (Rev. 4:11). Until we see this we are not upon our proper basis; our minds vacillate and our movements are eccentric; man has undue importance in our eyes, and in our attempts to serve his we are in danger of turning to human methods, and forget for the moment what is due to God. But the blessed God has placed Himself before us in Christ that we may be attracted to Him, and find in Him an Object that completely fills our vision and captivates our heart, so that there may be no room for an idol in whatever guise it may approach us. And it is to this end He has declared Himself in Christ.

Our consumer oriented society needs a Copernican revolution in thinking in order to understand and appreciate the Biblical concept of the will of God. Instead of concentrating on myself, on my wishes, on my ideas, the focus of Scripture is on God and His desires. God has created man in such a way that he functions in an optimal way when the heart is centred on God and not on self. In this context, to sum it up briefly, we are: God-oriented as to the instructions we need from the Word for our motives and goal; others-oriented as to our service, to do God's will; self-oriented with regard to the need for self-judgment in order to be able to discern and practice God's will; Christ-oriented as to the right incentive and example for a life according to God's will.

An immense fact — simple but of vast import — characterises Christianity. It gives us a positive object; and this object is nothing less than God Himself. Human nature may discover the folly of that which is false. We scorn false gods and graven images; but we cannot get beyond ourselves, we cannot reveal anything to ourselves. One of the most renowned names of antiquity is pleased to tell us, that all would go well if men followed nature (it is manifest that they could not rise above it); and, if fact, he would be in the right if man were not fallen. But to require man to follow nature is a proof that he is fallen, that he has degraded himself below the normal state of that nature. He does not follow it in the walk that suits its constitution. All is in disorder. Self-will carries him away and acts in his passions. Man has forsaken God, and has lost the power and centre of attraction that kept him in his place and everything in his own nature in its place. Man cannot recover himself, he cannot direct himself; for, apart from God, there is nothing but self-will that guides man. There are many objects that furnish occasion for the acting of the passions and the will; but there is no object which, as a centre, gives him a regular, constant, and durable moral position in relationship with that object, so that his character should bear its stamp and value. Man must either have a moral centre, capable of forming him as a moral being, by attracting him to itself and filling his affections, so that he shall be the reflex of that object; or he must act in self-will, and then he is the sport of his passions; or, which is the necessary consequence, he is the slave of any object that takes possession of his will. A creature, who is a moral being, cannot subsist without an object. To be self-sufficing is the characteristic of God.

Oh, my young friends! we have something here very glorious. Our Saviour has died for us that we may be diverted altogether from life of the old order and find a life with another Object and End altogether, living not to ourselves but to Him that died and rose again. There dawns upon us the vision of OUT living Saviour, the One who gave Himself for our sins; He lives to be the dominating factor, the new Object of the believer's life. Our lives, instead of all centring in some way upon ourselves, are to be centred on this new Object, the One who died for us and rose again. There is no deliverance greater, I believe, for the Christian than this of which I am speaking, the deliverance of being lifted clean out of yourself, and self-seeking with its likes and dislikes, so that instead of being centred upon yourself you are centred upon another, and that Other a worthy Object, a divine Object, an eternal Object. If I might offer a prayer for you it would be that you may very early discover in the Lord Jesus Christ, not merely a Saviour, to deliver from the penalty of sin (He is all that) but an Object of infinite love, excellence, glory, worthiness, to command your life and fill your heart. Oh! how excellent to be delivered from oneself and to be centred upon Him.

It will be no longer resting in the blessings of the gospel, wonderful as that is, and growing in a deeper appreciation of them, but surrendering all that you have and are for the will of God, that you henceforth “LIVE UNTO HIM.” The daily practice of this will set life in a different angle, and will bring the soul into such an appreciation of Christ that the experience will not puff the believer up, but will humble; and in humbling lift him up spiritually. In short he will be Christ-centred and not self-centred. When a Christian is self-centred in a pious way, his condition is offensive to the Lord, and dangerous to himself, and harmful to others. When he is Christ-centred, he will have Christ before him in every way and be marked by self-forgetfulness in being occupied with Christ.

The world at once sees if God is the centre of a person. The heart is not morbid, but thoroughly happy in God; it has perfect satisfaction in Him, this is what makes such a difference in life.

Self-occupation makes for ill-health and invalidism. This is an inexorable law of the spiritual life. A self-centred person cannot be either healthy, or happy, If we are to be kept in spiritual health and vigour we must have an object for our hearts and aims outside of ourselves. And I think that we shall all readily admit that being God's creatures He Himself ought to be that object; if He is not, we are living sinful and empty lives. That God may have His right place in our lives, He has revealed Himself to us, not by writing now upon tables of stone but by sending His well-beloved Son. The stern law would never have attracted and won us, but who shall describe the attractiveness of Jesus, our Lord? God was in Christ. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,” He said. And He who has revealed the Father rightly becomes now the object of our hearts when we know Him. But how does this come about, how does our Lord Jesus displace self and fill our hearts Himself instead?