Saved by Grace
Recently I realized that the more I try to give God more of me, the more of me I actually keep for myself.
Then it hit me.
I haven’t been giving God me, I’ve been giving him my actions: prayer, Bible study, fasting, worship, ministering, etc.
Then I asked myself these questions, “perhaps in my attempt to give God me, I’ve actually found a way to be most selfish. By only giving God my actions, have I been selfishly hoarding the very thing God desires of me…me? Have I been reading my Bible because I want God to see me as a good son, or am I doing it to know my Father better? Am I praying so that I can be heard, or am I praying so I can hear God? Am I fasting because I feel I will have earned something or am I fasting as a dedication of my body to God?”
The most scary question I had to ask myself was; “In all my religious superficiality had I never come to truly believe that Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient? Had I never really trusted in Jesus’ sacrifice fully, causing me to feel the need to tack on some religious obedience to be good-enough in God’s eyes?”
I’ve come to the conclusion that being an adopted son of God means I am loved just as much as Jesus is loved by the father. Not because of any work I’ve done, but because Jesus has justified (exonerated) me in the eye’s of God. This is so freeing to me because this means that God loves me today, the same amount as He will 62,819,173,748 years from now.
So I do not need to “do” anything for God to love me. This has freed me to do things purely out of a desire to build a relationship with Him.
Once I realized that Jesus meant what He said on the cross, “It is finished”, opened the door so I could really give God me, not just my actions.
