Agreeing with God involves a radical change in our whole way of thinking. I've suggested four main areas that are included in this change in our thinking. First, objectives; second, priorities; third, attitudes; and fourth, categories.
Yesterday, we finished with the second priority: the eternal before the temporal. God will never sacrifice the smallest fraction of eternity for the longest period of time. He always works with eternity in view, and when He's dealing with us, He works all things together for our eternal good, to make us the best kind of person in character that we can be throughout eternity.
Today we’ll begin to look at the third area in which we need to change: attitudes. This is a vital part of bringing our ways and our thoughts into line with those of God. And I want to suggest an attitude which I believe is of tremendous importance to God and decisive in all God's dealings, and it's one which I think the majority of Christians tend almost to ignore. So it may surprise you when I tell you what it is. The attitude in God that I'm going to speak about now is what I call "infinite attention to detail."
In the universe we have what's called the macrocosm, the great,big embracing hole, and we have the microcosm, the tiny, little piece somewhere - the little bug, the little grain of sand, the little drop of water, and smaller than that - the atom, the proton,the neutron, the electron. But no matter how small they may be, each of them exhibits exactly the same principle, exactly the same care, exactly the same wisdom. God does not diminish His care when a thing becomes smaller. He does not have the attitude, "Well if it's big, it's important, but if it's small, it's not important." And so many of us have that attitude and we miss God because our attitude is not in line with God's attitude.
Somebody said once, "Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains." I think that's God's genius. God has literally an infinite capacity for taking pains. He takes as much pains with the smallest thing in the universe as with the entire universe. Jesus taught this in a practical sense in Luke 16, verse 10, and I'm going to read two different versions because I think each of them brings out an aspect of the total truth. Luke 16:10:
“He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” (NKJ)
So there's the principle. If you are not faithful in that which is least, you cannot be trusted with that which is great. God always checks on our faithfulness, first of all in the little things. And if we don't pass the test in the little things - we may promote ourselves, we may seek to climb the ladder of success - but we will never earn God's promotion.
Lord, how wonderful thatY, who made heaven and earth - the whole universe - also has so much attention to every detail. Here too I want to look more and more like You, Father. Let me look as You look and take care as You care. Amen.
