Journey into Lightl

My family and society trained me to perform my way into receiving their approval. Just being me was not good enough. I had to please and impress to receive what I wanted from others. This led to me being hard on myself and often demanding more than I could deliver.

These beliefs were then brought into my relationship with God. I believed God was demanding too. My focus became doing the right things and not on being the right person. I also tended to think knowing the Bible was the same as living the Bible. But it wasn’t. Much of what I knew had little impact on my heart.

But our hearts are what God is most interested in. He says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). We can do right but for improper reasons. Our doing will be pleasing to God if our hearts are healthy. “First, wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too” Jesus tells us in Matthew 23:26.

A friend with significant financial problems has been recently serving our church in several capacities. At first church leadership was suspicious of the person’s motives. They thought the person may be doing the ministries to receive help from the church. But after several weeks of witnessing this persons’ behavior, the church concluded their behavior flowed from a healthy heart. They rewarded this person by loaning them a car.

Many of us believe we need to please and impress God in order to receive his approval and love. We don’t see them as gifts but as something to be earned. But he desires us to rely on his grace. We need to pay attention to what we depend on deep within to feel good about ourselves. Does it take a promotion, impressing the people at church, and being the best golfer in the foursome to regard ourselves as important? Or can we accept God’s gift of importance and be whatever he wants?

God desires us to be real with him. He wants us to know the truth about ourselves and to share it with him. “He desires truth in the innermost being and in the hidden part he will make me know wisdom” (Psalm 51:6).

He desires our love. Jesus says the greatest commandment is to “love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. We can only do this when we receive his gift of being loved with no strings attached. Then he wants us to love others in the same way. God tells us we “love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:9). This means treating people with patience, kindness, and always with their best interests at heart (1 Corinthians 13).

We also have to face the humbling truth we can’t do great things for God without him. He hopes we will depend on him. This week our church revealed a God-size vision for what he plans to do through our church. I was excited but puzzled about how insane these plans were and wondered what impossible things he planned to do through me?

God does not want us to turn away from what he asks of us. Instead, he wants us to rely on “”I am the LORD, the God of all the peoples of the world. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27). He hopes we will go beyond our human limitations and be bold enough to trust him for the impossible as he leads.

What does God want from us? He desires our hearts, love, honesty and dependence. May we keep these in focus as we fight the battles of everyday life.