Do I want to Know God or just work for Him?

Do I truly want to get to know God or do I just want to work for Him? I think this is the question every Follower of Christ will be guided to answer.

Many a soul signs up to believe, joins a church body and then jumps from Kindergarten to college level courses before we’re ready to go.

Oswald Chambers says; it is much easier to do something than to trust in God.

The “works” mentality is one of the most dangerous in the church today. Somehow we separate Faith and Works when to those who said those words that were written in the Bible, you could not have one without the other. (Jewish Culture)

You cannot truly do something for God if you don’t have faith in Him. What often times happens, I think, is works replaces faith and we see the victims of that ideology scattered in churches and alleys all over the world.

I cannot do more to have more faith. Faith is a gift from God not a perfect attendance pin for showing up every Sunday.

Faith is personal and increased by knowing God not by doing more for God. We can’t work harder to find faith. We can give up more of our own life to God and faith will be the result of such difficult action. But our tendency is to put the cart before the horse or in this case works before faith. Again, the two cannot be separated.

I grew up in the “Works” culture. Be good, be better, do this, do that and you will earn more faith. It was a lie.

I think I spent a lot of my life “doing” for God rather than working “with” Him. It’s easier really. But my faith was in an institution or in me performing well. Both failed to build the foundation I needed to truly work with God.

But God is good and He has a plan for each one of us, and that plan is to have a relationship with us first. As He builds are faith we will naturally “Do” things because the creator creates us in His image and we too will be creative. God serves and as we get to know Him we will do that same for Him and that will spill over onto others.

I wake up now knowing God will take care of me. I know He will provide me “works” to do with Him not for Him. There is great freedom in Christ but the “works mentality” will crush that freedom through performance.

I read this story in a book Ron Mehl wrote a couple of years ago.

Imagine you are in a desert, dying of thirst and you discover a well. There is a pump and a cup of water on top. There’s a note that says, “use this cup of water to prime the pump and you will have all you can drink.”

So, what would you do? Would you have the faith to do as the note says or would you take the easy way, do the sure thing and drink the cup of water?

That is how God is to me. Faith must be lived out. Faith usually follows difficult circumstances or decisions. I can’t “work” my way into faith. But when faith becomes part of my foundation great works will follow.