IT'S NOT ABOUT SERVING GOD

Before you faint or move away from the computer for fear of the lightening bolt coming to zap this post, let me explain what I mean.

Our purpose in life is not to serve God.

Are you shocked? Do you feel like just reading that sentence is akin to heresy? You aren't alone.

I don't mean that we aren't supposed to serve God or that serving God isn't a good thing. What I mean is that service is an overflow of our love and relationship with God.

Trying to serve God so you can be closer to Him is going about things backwards. When we love God; when we develop an intimate, close relationship with Him - then service naturally flows out of that.

God has an interesting way of getting truths home to me. In both a book I'm reading, Greater by Steve Furtick and in my Bible study When the Good News Get Even Better - this idea of relationship over activity was mentioned. In the same day.

Do you think God is trying to tell me something or what?

The thing is I often feel guilty - like I'm just not doing enough. Like, maybe if I work harder, run faster, do more - then I will be pleasing to God. In my head I know this isn't true, but old habits and thought patterns die hard.

But this is not a burden God asks me to take on. He doesn't ask me to run in a wheel like a gerbil. Instead, He invites me to come to Him. He invites me into intimate communion with Him.

He delights in me because I am His daughter - not because I did more than the next person. Not because I stayed up later, did more good deeds or had a longer to do list than anyone else at church.

This is not a "get out of good deeds" card. When we have draw closer to God, our natural reaction is worship, praise and obedience.

Ah, obedience - that too can seem overwhelming and too hard can't it?

Sometimes, obedience is hard. Sometimes, what God asks of us feels like stepping out into what can feel like thin air, but obedience is usually not one huge thing - it is a series of small steps that rolled into one, become a big thing.

Right now, I am reading through Holley Gerth's Do What You Can - which you can check out here

All God is asking is that we do what we can. That means being obedient, one step at a time, until He walks us to our promised land - a land where we sit at Jesus' feet, not run around frenzied and harrassed by all our "shoulds".

This is hard for me. Right now, I have a rather long to do list and I haven't even really gotten started yet. I feel that familiar sense of panic start to gnaw at me - You'll never get it done. How dumb - why didn't you get up earlier? That condemning voice hisses in my ear, but the truth is, I have the whole day ahead of me. I'm not behind and there is no reason I can't get the things on my list done. Satan wants me to feel overwhelmed and spazzed out because then, I won't do anything at all - especially not take the time to sit with Jesus, to read His Word and to pray. Which, when all is said and done, is the most important thing I could do today.

So, today, as you look at your long list of to dos, remember that God cares much more for you than your do.

~ Blessings, Bronte