Sunday, February 10, 2008

The Goal Oriented Christian

I got the Max Lucado book "In The Grip of Grace" recently. It was a great read. It talks a lot about the abundance of God's love and mercy in spite of all our failings. But the most telling part of the book were the questions at the end. Ive listed the ones which hit me the most:

- Do you live in fear of never doing enough? Or do you live in gratitude that enough has been done?
- Do you do good deeds in order to be saved? Or do you do good deeds because you are saved?

These questions really hit a nerve. For the people who know me, i tend to have a goal oriented nature and always rushing somewhere trying to accomplish something. A friend of mine always describes me as "eager". I believe that you get what you work for. Reap what you sow. You have to put the effort if you want results. In summary, hard work is inevitable. You have to earn it. I applied this to the xtian life only to find out it doesnt work. Ive been acting like an insecure child trying to impress His daddy's in order to merit his love. I am constantly trying to prove to God how much i love Him, how much am growing. Am always trying either to work out my guilt or make me feel deserving of a blessing or merit some supernatural favour. As much as I hate to admit it, I been trying to be right with God by actions\works instead of faith. Which is weird because I never really thought of myself as a legalistic person let alone holy. But obviously part of me is.

The book says how actions are fruitless because no matter what we do, we can never make up for the ultimate sacrifice he made by sending his Son to die for us. God loves me just the way I am and is routing for me to become the person he wants me to be. I just have to be secure in this respect and spend more time thanking him for his grace and less time trying to earn it.

Have a great week peeps.

2 comments:

Limitless sky said...

sincerely inspirational..this will definitely motivate me to start a blog...to start one for real this time!!!

Dave B said...

I sincerely believe that a Christian's approach to faith in Christ should not be goal oriented.

Goals are rigid and they force us to categorize our efforts into failures of successes. I just don't see how that approach to a relationship with God is beneficial. I don't see this approach to faith anyplace in the bible.

Use goals for the boardroom if you must, but keep them out of the pulpit. If are concerned about having vision for the future, worry about keeping your eyes fixed on Christ and if you absolutely insist on having goals, write them in pencil and don't be afraid to throw your notepad out the window if necessary.