Something about myself and the change that needs to be made in me. And who knows, maybe in others too.
I’m posting that comment not to boast in myself, but to boast in God. Her comment is honestly one of the nicest and most amazing things that has ever been said to me, and I’ll admit it makes me feel awesome about the choices I make. But what she says in the end….it just goes to show how our actions and choices to help someone else can TRULY open a door for God to enter and begin to WORK.
Here’s me being completely honest about myself. I truly am completely 100% genuine when I talk to people and pray for them. I don’t do it for publicity. But the truth is, there are way too many times where I’ll go home and be alone and think to myself how much I “should” be recognized for how nice I am to people.
My school gives out awards for your character. For how you treat others. For how you display the love of God. And almost consistently I will get the thought that I deserve it. That I SHOULD be awarded those things, because hey, aren’t I a genuinely good person? I help everyone, I’m nice to everyone…so I deserve it, right?
And then oh man, if I’m not noticed for things then it’s like, “Oh? Did I go wrong somewhere. Or maybe God’s just humbling me.”
The point that I’m trying to make is that is NOT a good mentality. It’s quite a bad one to have actually. Like in Matthew 6:1 it says, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”
Doing good for others isn’t so that I can gain something in the end.
It’s not so that I can get noticed.
It’s not so that I can be liked more.
It’s not so that I can be looked up to and exalted.
It’s so that GOD can be seen
It’s so that GOD can be exalted in a way that makes HIM likeable. That makes them want to Know Him more.
Even if I truly am genuine when I help people….I shouldn’t feel the need to gain things. Because then it becomes about me…and when that happens, then what I did basically has no meaning.
There’s no I in Jesus. But there is an E. and there is an US. Because everyone deserves to be loved. And it is not about US….but God has given redemption through His son to all of US.
We (Christians) are meant to reconcile the world. We’re meant to spread the good news. And we’re meant to do it for HIS KINGDOM. Not our own wordly kingdom build up of things that fade.
Because even if I do win whatever awards and titles that I want. Who is going to remember or know that in a few years aside from me? In the end it WILL NOT MATTER.
But what WILL matter is the genuine love that I give to others…that through God will have the power to draw them closer to God.
Our love can open up passages and gateways to the Heavenly Kingdom.
“Seek first the Kingdom of God and everything else will follow.” (Matthew 6:33)
I’ve been praying so, so hard these past few days that God will remove my desires to win these things that won’t last. And I realized tonight that the best way might be just to not win those things. So maybe I won’t. Maybe that’s how God will teach me. Or maybe He will just teach me through these realizations. Who knows.
But I truly pray that all of you who actually take the TIME to read this…will also come to the point in your lives where you realize that it is not the recognition that matters. It is the things done in secret that open gateways to winning another soul to the kingdom of God. That’s what matters. That is what lasts forever.
