The tendency to value our accomplishments is so great. We put titles after our names, hang certificates on our walls, and blush when people acknowledge our successes. We are driven by our culture, our pride, our sense of self-worth to be sure that we will have accomplished something at the end of our lives.
We like to feel needed. We like to know that our efforts count for something and that our work has affected the status quo. When we are asked to volunteer, don’t we feel a sense of satisfaction that we are needed? That we can bring something of value to the table? That we are, at least in some small way, validated? Even if we choose not to do it, we like to know what we can DO, because then we know that we matter.
We are worn out from all our efforts. We strive to balance a ridiculous number of tasks and images. We want to be sure that we keep up, meet deadlines, and avoid failure. It’s no wonder that the concept of Christ’s sacrifice for us is so difficult to grasp! Here we are, struggling to DO.
But we serve a God who is striving to tell us that it’s all been DONE!
Think about it. Take a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. You are, in God’s eyes, already cherished. Even before we accept Jesus, God deems us worthy - worthy enough to have sacrificed HIS SON for us. And once we claim Jesus as our Savior, our work is DONE. We have done enough. The rest is total freedom! Complete surrender. Complete acceptance.
Do we really believe this? Do we live like we believe it? Are we OK with it? Are we willing to allow this same experience for others?
Take some time today to sit in the presence of the God who created you. Rest…Read…Dream…Pray. Contemplate WHO you are in CHRIST, and that there’s nothing you can do to lose God’s love - or earn it. Just be. Get to know HIM, and let Him INSPIRE you!
CeCe Clark
so what do you do....if you go out and do all this "volunteer" work without being asked...and you give so much of yourself and alot of efforts, etc...etc..but there is NO acknowledgement or even appreciation. No acceptance. still rejected and "abanadoned"...even by people who call themselves SDA Christians? NO thank-you's? No "appreciated". Nothing. then what? for u see, I know what God thinks or feels towards me. I have no dispute there. Until recently when it seems that no matter how much good you do and put out everything is still against you, going wrong. So does that make me Unworthy? No value to who I am. I know I have to believe that God does have value in me, love me, appreciates me and I know in time I may be awarded for it even if it feels like a "failure' here on earth. Then I think of Matthew 25. Then I wonder...what if God is one of us....testing us. So did I pass? I would have to believe that I have passed that test because I know I don't (always) turn my back...on Him.
ReplyDelete"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son." He gave Him not only to live among men, to bear their sins, and die their sacrifice. He gave Him to the fallen race. Christ was to identify Himself with the interests and needs of humanity. He who was one with God has linked Himself with the children of men by ties that are never to be broken. Jesus is "not ashamed to call them brethren" ( Hebrews 2:11); He is our Sacrifice, our Advocate, our Brother, bearing our human form before the Father's throne, and through eternal ages one with the race He has redeemed - the Son of man. And all this that man might be uplifted from the ruin and degradation of sin that he might reflect the love of God and share the joy of holiness.
ReplyDeleteThe price paid for our redemption, the infinite sacrifice of our heavenly Father in giving His Son to die for us, should give us exalted conceptions of what we may become through Christ. As the inspired apostle John beheld the height, the depth, the breadth of the Father's love toward the perishing race, he was filled with adoration and reverence; and, failing to find suitable language in which to express the greatness and tenderness of this love, he called upon the world to behold it. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.' ( 1 John 3:1). What a value this places upon man! Through transgression the sons of man become subjects of Satan. Through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ the sons of Adam may become the sons of God. By assuming human nature, Christ elevates humanity. Fallen men are placed where, through connection with Christ, they may indeed become worthy of the name "sons of God."