Be God's Friend

On this occasion I am going after the attitude that God is your critic, always wanting more.

You must understand that there is a spiritual reality that says everything we do is to be lived out of relationship. The truth is, God doesn't need our help. If God wanted to, he could either do it himself or send an angel to do it or even send someone else. What God really wants is to get close to us. How close you are to God is the true measuring rod of how successful you really are. You could be doing lots of stuff and calling it ministry and all the time becoming more and more distant from God. It was for this reason that Jesus said "I never knew you" in Matthew 7:23.

When we get close to God, and experience his kindness, it begins to redefine who we are. This redefinition is the work God must do in our hearts in order for us to truly be effective in ministry. Discovery of grace is crucial to spiritual development. Without discovering grace, we will be prone to a works oriented religion and believe God is never satisfied. You need to know grace for yourself, but the way to grace is through admitting your need and weakness before God and others.

Let me put it to you this way. Outside of writing here, there isn't a ton of ministry in my life. I have multiple close friends and I hang out with a teenager once a week who doesn't have a dad and play Netrunner and talk. From a purely quantitative perspective I am not much to speak of. Unfortunately, due to my disabilities, I think this might be my max for the time being. I am doing good to be taking care of myself, and admitting my own weakness has been hard. And yet it is the fact that I have come to grips with grace, really knowing the love of God, that has helped me accept where I am, and let me live at peace with the fact that I probably don't live up to other people's standards about "what I ought to be doing". Please hear me out- grace means that we live out of relationship with God and let him set the expectations for our lives. There are times when I wish I could be more like someone else, who is doing more. I am glad though, that God gave me this weakness or I might not have been so profoundly impacted by grace, so completely transformed by the love of God.

My prayer for you today is that you might discover the depths of the love of God. That you might admit to yourself, to God, and to others your own weakness and come to realize how great the grace of God really is. He really is the kindest person you will ever meet, and he really does accept us for who we are, regardless of faults. Let God's love touch you and change you today!

Your companion in Christ,
Sean