It’s easy to fall into the trap of letting your relationship with God be dictated by a bunch of rules, regulations, and empty time with Him. Everything that is supposed to rejuvenate and draw you closer to God becomes a way to gain God’s approval. The hardest thing to fully understand and realize is that we aren’t here to earn God’s approval. We are here to let him turn our brokenness into something beautiful and to serve Him with everything we have.
It is impossible to be “good enough” for God. That is why he had to send His son, Jesus, to die for our sins and why Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”. God gave us this incredible gift that seems almost too good to be true sometimes. I mean all we have to do is have faith that what Jesus did is enough to save us? That seems too easy.
Why do we feel like we need some rigorous test to be saved or to even have a relationship with Him? So many people believe that they can’t come to God until they are a better person. God calls us as we are now to serve Him. When He called the disciples to come follow Him they didn’t tell God to wait until they were worthy. They dropped everything and went.
This same mindset can start to pollute a relationship with God. It happened to me. I thought I was doing everything- reading my bible, praying, listening to sermons- because I love God. I was doing it for that reason but there was a deeper, darker one. I felt like I needed to prove my worth. I needed to be this perfect Christian everyone thought I was.
I realized pretty quickly that I can’t earn anything. I wasn’t meant to earn my worth because I already have it. I don’t have to live up to everyone’s standards for me - I need to live up to God’s. We’re not here to please people; we are here to please Him. Trying to earn God’s approval is like trying to climb a broken ladder. For every rung you climb it breaks and you slide back down. For every good deed you do, there is a sin committed and you just feel like a failure.
It’s a form of bondage when you live with this mindset and you can’t experience the freedom that is found in His grace. God isn’t like our driver’s test instructor, watching us with a clip board and waiting for us to slip up. He is walking next to us with open arms ready to catch us and put us back on our feet when we fall.
Don’t try to earn God’s favor, because you can’t. Instead just live in obedience to Him and His word and He will be pleased. All He wants is our love and a desire to serve Him above everything else. If we do that, He is happy to call us faithful servants.
