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Good Enough?
Galatians 5:24 (NKJV)
And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
It’s not good enough to be good. We think it is, but it’s not. Good does not mean surrendered or focused or committed. It doesn’t even mean that we’re being obedient. Being a good person and doing good things is not a true indication that we’ve decided to put our self-motivated actions on hold in order to do what we know we need to do.
Good holds us back. It convinces us that we’ve done enough to be acceptable or even admired. But what are we after? Really? Are we willing to scrape the bottom of our potentials by meeting some natural definition of “enough” or do we want to live surrendered lives? The answer to this question hides behind our motives.
If we’re determined to be good we sacrifice being our best. What do I mean by that? It’s so easy to believe that we’re in God’s will when we do good things but our busyness may be interrupting the opportunity to actually hear God’s instructions. When we set our own course, we miss what God has in mind. The issue is not that He can’t use our poor actions to meet His will for us in every situation (Romans 8:28), but He’d like us to want to do things based on His plan, not ours.
We can do all of the things that make us feel great about our work and impact and still function outside of His perfect design for our lives. So, what can we do about that?
Begin with prayer. Ask God to speak to us clearly and help us have open hearts and listening ears.
Wait and listen. Every task or issue doesn’t need an immediate response. Make a decision to wait for His instructions before jumping out and moving forward (or, at a minimum pray as you do that thing).
Surrender. Trying to get a ‘word’ from this person or that person often confuses the issue. Let God be our Guide. The confirmations will come.
What else?
We need to surrender our intentions to Him and humbly dedicate ourselves to seeking only His best and highest. How do we do that? By doing that. We make a decision. We put first things first. We decide that His agenda has priority over our ideas. We agree that we were not created for ourselves but were instead created for the Creator.
God gets to decide how we do what we do and we get to surrender, follow and follow through. When we live like that, we truly realize that following Christ is good enough.
PRAYER
Lord, Thank you for reminding us that the good things we do limit our ability to do what you have in mind. Teach us how to patiently look for your direction. While we wait, we can keep ourselves busy doing the last thing you told us to do.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Live well,
Michele
Also Read, “Walk Good!”
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