Hindrances to Becoming Like Christ Part 4: Selfish Faith

Let’s ask ourselves some tough questions:

What motivates your faith in God, today?

Looking back, what prompted you to accept Christ as Savior and Lord?

Looking at the reasons for our faith can help us identify where our need of God stems from.

Do we need Him in our daily lives…or just to “get out of hell” when our lives are over?

Do we trust Him only when times are good…or call out to Him only when things get tough?

Analyzing how we relate to God on a daily basis will show us how strong our relationship with Him truly is (click to tweet).

The song, “Hosanna” by Hillsong United has a powerful line (underlined) that has left me asking,

What are the motives behind my faith?

Here’s the verse that has prompted my assessment:

I see a generation

Rising up to take the place
With selfless faith, with selfless faith

SELFLESS FAITH.

Is my faith in Christ selfish…or selfless?

Like Job, can I sincerely say, “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” Job 2:10b

 

Do all I want are God’s blessings?

Do I want an “easy” life here with a pass on hell for later?

Or am I willing to serve Him when things don’t go my way, when pain hits, and faith gets hard?

While reading through the book of Job, I see God showing not only satan, but also Job, the true depths of Job’s faith and the motives behind his devotion to God:  LOVE.

Job’s faith was selfless.

He loved God regardless of blessings, regardless of possessions, regardless of health.

In the end, both satan and Job knew that God was enough for Job. He didn’t require anything else but simply to be known by God.

I read an article on the The Blaze about the Ebola survivor, Nancy Writebol, who was a missionary in Liberia. During the painful recovery she drew closer to God. But there was a time she wasn’t sure she would recover. During this time she shares that, “she felt God responding to her with an important question: “Nancy, if I take the boys, if I take David away from you and if I take your life and you are with me, am I enough?”

I think God is asking all of us, “Am I enough?”

Do you love Him for WHO He is or for what it profits you to belong to Him?

Do you seek His hand or His face?

Are you willing to accept suffering as much as the blessings?

Another thing I learned while reading through Job is that all the suffering provided ample opportunity for Job to JUSTIFY his temptation to sin, to alleviate his suffering and/or to cast blame. 

Simply put: Suffering brings us into great temptation.

It’s up to us how we respond to suffering (choice).

Will we curse God? Blame Him? Turn from Him? Turn TO others for comfort? Self medicate? 

Or will we draw closer to God? Cling to Him? Reject worldly solutions? Praise Him even though we don’t understand and the pain is overwhelming?

For Job, it was his faith that brought about his suffering, but it was also his faith that saw him through (click to tweet). 

His faith in God was selfless.

Is yours?

Is mine?

I pray you truly ask yourself if GOD IS ENOUGH?

Or do you feel you deserve something from Him? Deserve His blessings? Deserve possessions? Deserve good health? Deserve protection from hard times? Deserve an “easy life now” as well as a pass on hell for all eternity?

What motivates your faithfulness to God?

How devoted are you?

How selfless is your faithfulness?

^“Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.  What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?  Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?  If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” Mark 8:34-38 NIV