God Gets It…He Still Owes Us Nothing
So, you’re tired. You feel drained. You feel like quitting. Well, no one understands these feelings more than God himself. Why? Because he has been through the same thing when He came down to Earth and wrapped himself in flesh. Jesus lived a life of sacrifice. He made a sacrifice when He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. He sacrificed His time whenever He walked with the disciples and taught them, He sacrificed His time when He preached to the public. Lastly, and the most obvious one, Jesus sacrificed His life for us by willingly submitting to God’s will and allowing Himself to be crucified.
Therefore, when we sacrifice things in our life or when we sacrifice ourselves, we must remember that God has done this as well. This means that He gets it. God gets how hard it is. He knows the struggle. However, this does not, by any means, make Him feel sorry for us. This is simply a part of our walk with Him and it is His expectation of us. Why? Well, sacrifice is actually a form of worship. When you worship, you are laying down all that you have to exalt God and His name. When you sacrifice, you are also laying everything down. The only difference is that you are taking it a step further and you are laying down what you love most. This way you show God that you love Him more. Worship is how we express our love. Love always needs to be expressed. This is why we must worship God and not stop. If we do, whether or not we are conscious of it, we will worship someone or something else and will express our love in a perverted way.
Think about it. When someone is a self-professed “sneakerhead” who jumps at the very first opportunity to get a new pair of Jordans or whatever sneaker they love or are willing to wait in a long line for, and in some cases camp out in front of a store and sleep on the sidewalk for… (I mean are they still doing that post-Vid? I don’t even know) this person is in idolatry. They may not necessarily idolize the sneaker or the brand. However, they could be worshiping people because they want their approval and their acceptance by wear certain trendy clothing that is deemed exceptional, or at the very least acceptable. They also may idolize themselves and feel as if they should always uphold a certain image to maintain a false perception of being perfect, which a lot of times is rooted in trauma.
So, it really is inevitable. We will always worship because this is what we were created to do. When someone slaves at their job for hours to get the next new name brand item, they don’t expect Gucci, Nike, or Balenciaga to sing their praises or pay their rent for the next six months. None of us do. At least, none of us who are sane. If someone were to sue one of these companies for money stating that they are owed money because that individual spent hard earned money that they had and in some cases didn’t have, we would turn our faces up at them and tell them that it is their fault, they brought that on themselves and that those companies owe them anything.
So, if that would be considered weird, why is it not weird if we have this same attitude toward God? Especially, when God actually rewards us, even when we don’t always see it. Our rewards from God for the sacrifices we have made are not always material and sometimes do not always seem like a blessing at first. Sometimes, our reward is losing a relationship or a job. What we saw may have been all that we had left. But what God saw was something that was holding us back from moving forward into our purpose. Therefore, He removed it. Other times we may get a blessing that looks like, feels like, and sounds like a blessing. But whatever the result, we must realize that God owes us nothing. He never owed us anything. Yet He gave us His life. When we give Him our lives in return, let’s not expect anything back. It’s about time that stop holding out empty hands to God all of the time and start holding our hands out toward Him with fruit and sacrifices that we have to give to Him with no strings attached and no expectation of what we can get back from Him in return.
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