Merit?

JOY FROM CHRIST, NOT YOUR PERFORMANCE

Sure enough, it's been a fairly... relaxed, holiday.

I mostly had places to go. Met up with some people. Other than that, I slept a little too much than I should've.

I don't know. It took a while for me to realize that I wasn't feeling that great the whole time.

There wasn't too much that was going awry. Everything seemed fine. I was planning some stuff for the fellowship members.

But today I had a little more time and and little more will than usual to examine my heart before God. I knew something was wrong. I felt out of place.

I dozed off in my thoughts during the evening. When I woke up from my short nap, for some reason, I came to understand what was going on. It wasn't about Him anymore. Everything was alright on the surface of things, but I seemed to act as if that was all that God saw.

What I noticed was a lack of passion. The kind of passion that inspired my past posts that had to do with extreme enthusiasm and desire for none other than God Himself. Back then, I didn't have too much to worry about, other than seeking to know Him.

I notice that God is molding me through these recent occurrences. There is a lot of urging, whether internally or externally, for me to do something, to change some things, to bring variety to the fellowship, to go and evangelize, to reconcile some differences. These urgings threw me off focus.

The thing is, I found that it really, truly was possible to be enthusiastic about serving in the church but not love God. It's this really deceptive mindset that drives a person to be satisfied about doing some good works, yet not for God's sake. It is not a satisfaction with who God is, with His holy excellence. It's satisfaction with "I'm a good person".

And when this takes over, you don't really care for seeking the infinite glories of God anymore; now your highest passion is to "share these gifts with others", rather than to know even more about Him, as if you've already depleted His fountain of joy. And you can't even see a reason for brokenness because you're so impressed with yourself. Your good works seem sufficient ground to you that God is pleased enough.

I quite naively thought this wasn't an issue in my life. Or, perhaps I wished it wasn't. But this attitude was present, and it became an ever present, troubling veil between me and God. I'm glad I'm convicted of this, though. I'm free again.

Once again: to do right in His eyes is good enough; Soli Deo Gloria.

And what is more right than to uphold the most Righteous?

I'm going to sleep.