Dancing with God

“Dancing with God”

by Pastor John Morgan

May 3, 2020

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

• Acts 2:1-4, NIV

When we move; God moves--just like that. The consistent pattern between God and man has been a partnership, doing things with us. God has chosen to engage us as partners, not puppets. 

Now, God is sovereign, and he can do whatever he wants to do. If he chooses to bypass us, and do his will, then that is his sovereign power. In Genesis 1 and 2, God creates man and puts him to work in the garden. In Acts, God gives us the Holy Spirit to partner with us as we go into the world to fulfill his mission by sharing the Gospel.

This partnership is like dancing with God. God doesn’t want to dance alone; he wants our life to operate in tandem with him. We move; God moves. We‘re not his puppets, nor is he ours. 

If we want a more intimate relationship with God, James 4 says to draw near to God, and he will draw near to us. If we want peace in a crisis, Isaiah 26:3 says that when we fix our focus on him, he will fix his perfect peace on us. Hebrews 11:6 says that if we want more of God’s presence, he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. When we seek God, we will find him (Jeremiah 29:11). 

If we want God to look after our house, we have to look after his house. Malachi 3 teaches us that if we bring supply into his house, then God is going to bless our house. It is the law of mutual response. Jesus said when we make his kingdom a priority, he would make ours a priority (Matthew 6:33). The Bible is clear, if we give it comes back, pressed down, shaken together, and then running all over. If we want God to be generous to us, then we need to be generous to other people.

Here are some truths that we can learn about dancing with God.

1. Forgiveness

As we forgive others, we release heaven’s forgiveness towards us (Matthew 6:12). If we want greater levels of grace in our lives, then we need to dance in grace. Here are some response steps that will help us practice forgiveness: 

1) Don’t curse it. 

2) Don’t rehearse it: Don’t let things go over and over in our minds. The more we give a conflict thought, we will add things to it in our minds. Don’t feed the conflict with negative conversations with other people. 

3) Reverse it: Jesus pre-forgave us 2000 years ago. We need to learn how to pre-forgive others. 

4) Disperse it: We need to learn how to give forgiveness to other people and trust that vengeance belongs to the Lord (Deuteronomy 32:35). 

2. Mercy: 

When we show mercy to others, God will show mercy to us (Psalm 18:25). We must learn to value people more than we value our own opinion. We tend to judge other people by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. Let us be quick to give others the benefit of the doubt. A few tips for practicing mercy: 

A) Don’t over-react in conflict by bringing a bomb when a slingshot will do.

B) Even when we have been hurt in the past, we must learn how to take risks with people and choose the relationship over being right. 

3. Judgment: 

If we can avoid judgment, we should avoid it. We should not live in a constant state of criticizing others. If we must judge, think about the purpose--what do we want the result to be? The scripture says that the measure we use to judge will be used to us (Matthew 7:1-5 NIV). When we need to exercise judgment to bring discipline to a situation where we have the authority to do so, we should think about the proportion and the perspective. If we want relational grace with people, then we should be the first to show mercy. Showing mercy builds equity for us in heaven and on earth. We should be slow to judge.

God has created openings in our world so we can execute a level of control through partnership with him. Life doesn’t just happen to us; it happens through us. We move, and as we move, it causes God to move.

Let’s embrace the dance. We must take our eyes off ourselves, put our eyes on God, and learn how to do life dancing with him.

Discussion/Reflection Questions:

1. What has been the most exciting partnership with God in your life thus far?

2. How do you plan to practice the concept of dancing with God now and in the future?

3. Think of a time when forgiveness has been challenging. What did God teach you in that process?

4. Are there any ways that you want to grow in your application of mercy and judgment in conflict, and if so, how do you plan to implement this?