WE SERVE GOD OUT OF LOVE

Paying it Backwards? By Toni Babcock

Imagine a wife insisting her husband write her out a check for every household responsibility she completed in a day. Doing the laundry would accrue say, fifteen dollars. Doing the dishes would rack up another ten. Cleaning the bathroom, that would be worth a good twenty. 

But obviously something is missing in a relationship where either man or wife insists on a monetary reward for serving and taking care of one another. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out what it is. Love is missing.

I believe it's the same way God must feel when He is expected to pay us back for what we do for Him. Consider how this is a rather backwards way of looking at God's grace. Instead of giving God all that we are, in view of all that He has freely given to us, we choose to serve God with payment in mind. 

It comes with the idea that God keeps his grace in a treasure chest in heaven, and gives it out piece meal for every duty and sacrifice accomplished in His name on earth. 

I am afraid there are a lot of sincere people who approach the Christian life this way. But is this the spousal love toward Jesus Christ that God the Father intended for us to share?

Trust in a gospel that allows you to love Jesus Christ as freely as He loves you.

Learn to serve him freely too, 

"For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them," (Ephesians 2:8-10 KJV).