I recently purchased glasses to wear at night. Sigh…that season is upon me. I want to complain about needing assistance, but I am thankful for the help. It means I can keep going at the pace of my choosing. You know, and I know, it is a losing battle. My eyes will continue to fade, my pace continue to slow and I will regrettably lose the option to choose. There is a lesson in the slowing. It has to do with a greater vision.
God is talking, talking, talking about my priorities, my heart, and my investment of energy. Therefore, I want to make you as uncomfortable as He is making me. Smile.
I am a do-er. I love a good list. I love checking off completed items because I like to be productive. Not busy…but productive. That’s in the fine print, right?
My whole Christian life I have heard “to whom much is given, much is required.” Luke 12 And while I don’t feel bound by performance (anymore), and I am definitely not working for God’s love (anymore), I do want to be faithful to complete all that God has deposited in me. It’s all for Him, right?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Sunday morning, the Lord stood me on my head regarding this verse from Luke. Add to that a good eye-opener from this Shawn Boltz book I am reading. I have only made it through chapter 6 and Boltz issues a call for pure intimacy and laying down the law. He boldly explains how the Church is living under the law by trying to “do good for God” or “win souls for God” or even “build churches” for God.
He says plainly, and I quite agree, these are wrong goals. Even the preaching of loving our neighbors is misguided if we do not preach and teach first and foremost how to experience and long for the intimate love of the Godhead.
Our goal. OUR ONLY GOAL is to love Jesus more and more. Our aim is being with Him, growing in our affection, receiving His love and revelation, becoming like Him through the Holy Spirit.
We are here for Him. We are Jesus’s reward. This is the chief aim of the human life. And then, out of this glorious place, we overflow into the lives of others.
So now read Luke 12:48 (NLT)
“When someone has been given much,
much will be required in return;
and when someone has been entrusted with much,
even more will be required.”
We have made that mean doing FOR God. But the Passion Translation brings a whole new spin.
“For those who have received a greater revelation from their master are required a greater obedience. And those who have been entrusted with great responsibility will be held more responsible to their master.”
This echoes what the Lord said to me Sunday morning. It’s not about doing for Him.
To whom much is given,
Read: the person who has greatly encountered God’s love
much is required in return
Read: then great is the response of love desired by Jesus in return
from us
The one who has been entrusted with much
Read: the person who has been granted the secrets of Heaven
much more will be asked.
Read: then that person will be asked to surrender all to carry the
weight of glory.
It’s about loving Him with complete abandon as reciprocal as a bride loves her Groom.
If this doesn’t blow your face off— then look Jesus’s declaration in verse 49.
“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already ablaze with fiery passion for God!”
Listen, I love Jesus. I love Father and Holy Spirit. And yet I have this conviction in my soul. All this empty or obligatory doing for Him, these silly games of being good Christians so we can get our gold stars are just— blasphemous.
Stop whatever motions you are mindlessly going through until you feel HIS heartbeat in your chest. And then… stay. right. there.
It’s about the fiery passion for the God of Heaven until you hunger for nothing else. Let your eyes be fixed on this fire.