Do you love God, or do you love what God does for you?
This question came up on Day 6 of my reading of David Nasser's A Call to Die. There's a few big differences between the two...and by a few I mean everything.
If you love God, your life is focused on serving him. If you only love what God does for you the focus of your life is you.
If you love God, you have learned to be content with or without worldly things, because no matter what you still have Christ, and He is all that matters. If you only love what God does for you, the first time things get rough or you don't get your way, you get angry with God. Why me? Why didn't you give me this?
If you love God, you will happily follow wherever he takes you, do whatever is asked of you, obeying the Lord out of your love for Him. If we only love what God does for us and what He asks is too hard our interferes with our own "perfect plans" for our lives, if it makes us uncomfortable, we will say, no maybe later God.
If you love God, your prayers will look different. They will be full of praise and thanksgiving. You will still have requests, but even while praying for those things it will be in the midst of praising God for who He is and all He has done. If you only love what God does for you, there will be a long list of requests for you, our maybe a friend, but it will be "God give me this" and "If you'll give me this I'll do this" and them if we get it there is no thankfulness. All God will get from the person who loves God only for what He does is another list of requests to make life on earth more comfortable and enjoyable for them, or anger when they don't get what they want.
I encourage each of you to seriously take a look at your relationship with God. Is there some sticking point where you won't give in to God, where you say no, or get angry you didn't get something. Evaluate why you felt that way. What is in your life that you value more than God, that you would say no to the Creator of the universe, the Lover of our should, who died the most excruciatingly painful death imaginable to save each.of us from being separated from Him? So you didn't get the new 360 system you wanted and you're angry God didn't give it to you. Are video games more important than God? He's asking you to do something your friends won't like. Does what people think matter to you more than God? He's asking you to go overseas and you might be killed for your faith there. Is your worldly life and comfort more than God?
Nothing should take God's place in our hearts. Pray about it. Seriously weigh everything in your life and ask God to show you what you value more than Him. Blessings and answered prayers are wonderful, but the biggest blessing in life is n being able to love and serve our Creator. Anything we value more than that we need to yank out of God's place and put Him back in it.
God, thank you for giving us the greatest gift in the world. You created the universe for us, and then when we let our own selfishness separate us from you by sinning, you died for us, not just to save us from the fires of hell, but to reunite us with you, our Creator, our Savior, our Lover. Help us today to recognize those things that we have placed before You, Lord, and to tank it out of your place in our heart so that we are ready to obey you and serve you, whatever the earthly costs, because You are the Ultimate Treasure.
