Sometimes
I feel like we discourage ourselves to be better followers of Christ. Myself included. Maybe because we think we can’t live ‘that’ lifestyle, or we think people will see us strangely, or we think we’re just not good enough to keep it up. But the truth is, it’s not about what YOU think. Seriously! If God hasn’t told you, “you’re not good enough for me” or “you’re never going to keep this up” (which He NEVER will) then we really can’t have any excuses.
Your relationship with God is exactly that - between you and Him. Screw other people! They’re not going to get you into heaven? You really need to stop discouraging yourself. Or keep thinking ‘that’s not me, I can’t really live that way’. The idea of “correct” Christianity that we think is true can be so distorted sometimes. Nobody asks anyone to be boring, to go out only at daytime, to listen to Hillsong day and night. lol. To spit out proverbs and wise sayings and memory verses in our statuses and tweets. You know why people do that in particular? Because they feel the need to share the wisdom/truth that that sentence or whatever it is contains. And you’d find it, too, if you read and truly understood. But never mind that.
There ARE limits to being a Christian, but we don’t understand that they’re for our own good. Yes, it’s hard to believe; they’re for our own good. But the fact is, nooobody asks you to be boring.
You really need to stop discouraging yourself. It’s not work, maybe it can get tiring eventually, but you neeeed to realize the necessity of it all. Praying, reading, whatEVER. Certain elements of Christianity weren’t put there just for fun. They were put there for a reason. To show God our commitment to Him. And to keep Him in constant contact with us. So that when He looks at us on that day everyone talks about, there’s not a gaping hole between us and the person who prayed everyday, read the Word, kept checking to see if he really was a follower of Christ. So that it’s not like, “Do I know you? I don’t remember the last time you talked to Me to say thank you, or to pray for forgiveness..or the last time you recalled a memory verse you had read. Mm yeahh, I wouldn’t say you and I are exactly tight, soo… :/”
Nobody is perfect, but God isn’t asking for your perfection. He’s asking for your efforts. But seriously, if you’re looking at the next person who seems perfect in every sense, shouts God from the rooftops and who you “know” does all the “perfect things Christians do”, you WILL probably get discouraged, thinking you can’t be like them. Or you might think it’s the most boring, restrained lifestyle ever. God doesn’t want you to be THAT person. He doesn’t even need you to be like that person. He wants you to build your OWN standard, focus on your own relationship with Him.
You need help? Ask for it. A prayer is just a few words away.
And believe me, going to God in those difficult times and praying and asking Him for this and that and that…DOESN’T mean we really know God. It just shows we know how to talk to Him when things are hard. l know myself, and I’ve had to realize that time and time again.
Chale.
I’m learning.
So yeah. We need to stop discouraging ourselves. Starting today.
