The difference between Uncle Same and Jesus
"The difference between Uncle Sam and Jesus Christ is that Uncle Sam won't enlist you unless you're healthy and Jesus won't enlist you unless you are sick: 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners' (Mark 2:17). Christianity is fundamentally convalescence ('Pray without ceasing' = Keep buzzing the nurse). Patients do not serve their physicians. They trust them for good prescriptions. The Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments are the Doctor's prescribed health regimen, not the employee's job description."
I'm reading this book called "Desiring God" by John Piper. I've just gotten into a chapter that puts out this idea: "We do not glorify God by providing His needs, but by praying that He would provide ours--and trusting Him to answer."
The thesis of the whole book is this: "The chief end of man is to glorify God BY enjoying Him forever." That God's main purpose in our creation was to increase His own glory - by being good to us and letting us enjoy Him.
He retells a story told by Charles Spurgeon, called "Robinson Crusoe's Text":
"Robinson Crusoe has been wrecked. He is left on the desert island all alone. His case is a very pitiable one. He goes to his bed, and he is smitten with fever. This fever lasts upon him long, and he has no one to wait upon him--none even to bring him a drink of cold water. He is ready to perish. He had been accustomed to sin, and had all the vices of a sailor; but his hard case brought him to think. He opens a Bible which he finds in his chest, and he lights upon this passage, 'Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.' That night he prayed for the first time in his life, and ever after there was in him a hope in God, which marked the birth of the heavenly life."
"Robinson Crusoe's text was Psalm 50:15," Piper goes on. "It is God's way of getting glory for Himself--Pray to me! I will deliver you! And the result will be that you will glorify me!"
He fights the idea that this is self-centered by explaining that the glory goes to the Giver. We would try to put ourselves above God only if we came to Him like one who could help him, and not "as a little child" who is in desperate need of Him.
He brings up how Isaiah described God's uniqueness: "From of old no one has heard of perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for Him." (Isaiah 64:4). It seems that this is God's way of showing Himself big enough to not only be secure, but to provide for those of us who need Him -- to be the all-sufficient (as churchy of a word as that is) God of the Universe, who is not only powerful, but is so good that He uses this power for the good of the things He made.
I know I've written too much for a casual browse through your friends page, and I'm sorry. I know it's a bunch of broken up thoughts, but I hope I got the main idea out there. I'm not so good at explaining the bigger things in my head. Let me know what you're thinking about it...