When I was coming up there was a song that said, Only What You Do for Christ Will Last. I often think of the words of this song when I'm challenged to minister, to pray, to share the gospel or to serve in any capacity. I stop and ask myself why am I doing what I'm doing. I ask myself if God will be pleased with what I'm doing. Finally, I ask myself if it matters to me that no other person my ever know what I've done.
The latter question is the most important to me because it seems like the flesh wants to be praised. In the past I felt the urge to just blurt out that I was responsible for this or that or that something was my idea. I've even had the audacity to want to say that I was responsible for someone coming to Christ. Now that I look back at it all I can see that it is total nonsense.
When I was a little girl I asked God to use me and I imagined myself as a tool in His tool belt. I envisioned Him just taking me out and using me sometime in my life for whatever task it was--no matter how great or now small. When I became a teenager I was so determined to work for the Lord that I'd do any job at the church--I signed up to clean the bathrooms at church and to work in the kitchen. I just wanted to serve and I really didn't care how God used me. I just wanted to be used and I was content with whatever assignment He gave me.
If it wasn't for the grace of God where would I be? I work for the Kingdom because God has been so good to me, because I reverence Him, because He's kept me, because He's brought me from a mighty long way, because He reached way down and picked even me up out of the muck and the mire, and if He so graciously did that for me, I have to share with others that He can and will be whatever you need.
It is important; no paramount, that we understand why we do what we do. Do we help others so that we can brag about it? Do we sacrifice so that others can see what we've done? Do we have a secret desire for people to praise us or to value us for what we've done? Do we need validation from others?
If what I'm doing is for Christ then the only one that I'm seeking to please is Christ. I truly believe that putting Christ first in my focus will bring me to a place where I will mature spiritually and where I can find favor with God and man. But if no person ever acknowledges anything that we do as Christians--if they never know that you were behind the scenes, it's all good. God elevates and promotes.
Recall Matthew 7:22 and 23 where Jesus says there will be many that claim to have performed tasks in His name, but He will have to tell them to depart because He doesn't know them. Why wouldn't He know people who were doing things in His name? Because it's not about the what it's about the why. It's not about the thing, but its about the heart condition that led you to do the thing.
Let's spend our lives doing good. Let's spend our time helping others. Let's give all out ministering. Let's sell out, but let's do it all for Christ's sake. If He is always the reason and the focus we can't go wrong. Our deeds will last beyond the end of this age. Our names will appear in the Lambs Book of Life. We will have fulfilled our calling and our purpose and that is all the vindication and satisfaction that we need.
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