You and Me: Friends and Children with a Servant's Heart

Ever get stricken by the pride of man? You don’t have to admit it to me, but at least admit to yourself…at times in your life, when you’ve done something and seen that it was good, you have had at least a little pride in what you’ve shown yourself capable of doing. Perhaps this has even hit you when you spoke the Truth of God and led someone to recognize Christ and commit to Him. Praise the Lord! That’s awesome, and we should be filled with joy! But be on your guard in that situation…it’s only natural for a human to immediately feel so joyful, which is initially rooted in God and righteousness, but then to be tempted to feel like you did something good or great. We start out in life so eager to please men—our parents, our friends, our bosses. Think about childhood and adolescence and see if that isn’t true. It’s even true in adulthood for most. Somewhere along the line, we see Christ for who He is by His grace, and we set out to change whom we are eager to please. When we seek approval of men and obtain it, we are filled with pride—that is 100% true. As we change what we seek, we must break this cycle. If we seek God’s approval, when we see He has done something good through us, we will have the same response that we had with men—pride. Now there is a real irony: doing God’s work, resulting in the cancerous sin of pride! How terrible. So how do we break out of that mentality? Firstly, we are already approved, only by Jesus’ intercession to the Father. There is no approval beyond that…we are loved, plain and simple. You cannot be more loved than by the Love of God! And you have received the Love that is so consuming that there is no greater approval to be found. The rest of our lives, we do not gain approval—we simply respond to the amazing rebirth with gratitude and love that pours from Him into us until we overflow into others. At that point, when we stop seeking approval of our Heavenly Father as we seek approval of men, we might begin to slay the tenacious Pride of Man. Consider this truth from Jesus himself, in talking with the disciples:

Luke 17:7-10 - "Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? 8Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? 9Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'"

“We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.” This is for you and me as much as it was for the 12 disciples. I think we need to be reminded of this verse every time we see God do something for His Kingdom through us. He chose to do it through us and could have used anyone else…He chose us, we didn’t choose Him first.

Rom 5:8 – “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

1 John 4:10, 19 – “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins…We love because He first loved us.”

We did nothing but have our eyes opened and see God as He already is and see what He is to be doing in us, then we watched as He poured forth from us with our eyes wide. “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.” Loved servants, for sure. Even friends of God, with whom He shares not just the 'what' but the 'why' of His work:

John 15:15-16 – “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”

That is absolutely amazing. I think as friends of Jesus, we can still approach with the same unwavering attitude: “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.”

What a glorious duty. I think when we get to the point of humility and actually declare that truth, we are never more joyful. Many are going to hear that verse by itself and immediately say, “Who am I? I am so unworthy.” Me too. But the focus of unworthiness isn’t rooted in guilt, it is revelation of God’s incomprehensible righteousness, glory, power, and mercy. If not applied to the heart as intended, you may feel sorry for your unworthiness and forget that you are a child of God, not just a servant (Rom 8:14-17, John 1:12, 1 John 3:1-2, for starters). We can have the pure attitude of a servant while being treated as God’s very children. That is a joyful realization, I believe. We can err with an attitude that is not joyful, begrudgingly declaring ourselves as servants, as if to be a servant of God was a low and joyless position. Realize that a servant in Heaven is higher than the highest position on earth! However, if that suddenly makes being a servant more doable, then we are still stricken with pride and selfishness. We have missed the entire glory and grace of God! How could we then take on this attitude: “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty” if we seek the position through servitude, instead of serving God in gratitude?

So now that we realize that there is no guilt or dread in humbling ourselves to be servants, we can go right back to the conviction. We could have been tossed out like garbage, for before Christ’s blood, death, and resurrection, I was a garbage heap of a man, not fit for righteousness, and certainly not at all compatible with Heaven. But immediately upon receiving the Truth of Christ, God has made me righteous. God has given me the opportunity to give up my room in Hell, and take the position of a servant in Heaven. The same is true for you. We have not earned it. We can barely accept it, as it is so far beyond even the purest gifts of love possible from a mere human. So we say with joy, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty,” as we praise Him forever! Amen!

Radical Faith, Greatest Joy

Check out the "My Utmost" for Oct 23: http://www.myutmost.org/10/1023.html

Here is a quote that I find most powerful and deep reaching:

“How are we going to get the life that has no lust, no self-interest, no sensitiveness to pokes, the love that is not provoked, that thinketh no evil, that is always kind? The only way is by allowing not a bit of the old life to be left; but only simple perfect trust in God, such trust that we no longer want God's blessings, but only want Himself. Have we come to the place where God can withdraw His blessings and it does not affect our trust in Him? When once we see God at work, we will never bother our heads about things that happen, because we are actually trusting in our Father in Heaven Whom the world cannot see.”

Firstly, can you even imagine life so refined by God that you have no lust or no self-interest? No sensitiveness to “wrongs,” or unprovokable love? I can hardly fathom it. But we’re working our way there by God’s grace.

Secondly, would our faith be tested and revealed so strong as it currently seems or appears if all of God’s blessings were stripped away? All of them. For Job, all was taken but his life, yet he remained faithful. We seek blessing after blessing—at least I have for the longest time—but there is a major difference in seeking gifts vs. seeking the Giver. To think that we’d be content to have daily conversation with God, stripped of every human comfort and physical blessing. To think that quite literally, “My grace is sufficient for you,” and that was literally all we had to cling to (2 Cor 12:9). Few of us have ever truly been there, not to that extent, and honestly, I kind of hope not to be…yet, what a joy must be developed in someone who is led down that path, never forsaking God, continuing to have faith and be sustained by God Himself alone, supernaturally through the presence of His Holy Spirit within us. I don’t think you or I even know what that really means or looks like, for we are so far from it. It makes me consider the following: the man who does not know Jesus and is suffering--he is to be pitied. The man who stands solidly in Christ and is suffering--he is to be envied (in a righteous sense, such that we see his plight as good and desirable). That’s a radical change of thought, but I believe it is true. Understandably, many cannot accept it.

Let's ask ourselves this piercing question today: What would it take for me to trust God with absolute abandonment to the point that all I desire is His presence and grace and nothing else matters? Am I willing to pursue eternal life with Him that way, or am I resigned to always put a little bit of myself above all other things, including my all-powerful, perfectly loving God and Creator?

Tithing – More Than Just Money?

If you have grown up in the church or have spent a long period of time there, you likely know the concept of tithing. As a refresher and for those who are eager to learn greater depth of their faith in Jesus and the Almighty God of the Bible, tithing is a basic concept prescribed for followers of God in the Old Testament and is certainly pleasing to God to this day. You can look up Lev 27:30-34 (and many others) to find where God made this requirement of His people.

Moreover, check out Mal 3:8-10 –

“’Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”

That is very cool, as it is the only place in the Bible that I know of where God actually says to test Him, and what a great promise that follows.

Historically, economies were much more largely based upon the barter and trade system and less on common currency, so many people tithed of their crops, farm animals, or items they made and sold. Today, we mostly tithe of our incomes. In either case, we tithe of our wealth, whether it be money earned or possessions that constitute our means of survival and provision for ourselves and our families. It puts God first and us second, which is only natural, and is an expression of well-placed gratitude. Ask those who tithe and they can attest to the promise of Mal 3:10 being true.

The other day I got hit with another inconvenient conviction: what if we tithed not just of our money, but of our time? Immediately, I felt that familiar inner conflict, and as I did the math, I quickly decided that it might be too tough to consistently uphold such a commitment. But God wouldn’t let it go, so I am bringing this inconvenient conviction to you: what if you and I decided to tithe of our time for our Lord?

Here’s what it might look like: I’m going to throw out sleep and assume the average night’s sleep of 7 hours (individuals may vary). A week has 168 hours, less the 49 hours of average sleep, leaving 119 hours of work time, plus free time, plus all the other time we are awake. What if we tithed of that 119 hours each week? What if we spent 12 hours dedicated to our all-powerful Provider and all-loving Savior? After all, even 10% seems like a meager offering to a God who is to be my everything, to whom I am to pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17). In fact, I’m getting convicted again that for most of us that call ourselves Christians, we spend only 1-2% of our weeks in time dedicated to God (1.5 hour church service only). Then we wonder why we have a hard time hearing him and why we feel distant at times and why we struggle with sin in the world around us. If only 2% of ourself is dedicated to God, then what is the other 98% dedicated to?

Now, if 12 hours of real, solid, genuine time dedicated to God each week sounds hard, I understand. You are not alone, for I have been a 2 percent-er for much of my life. So let’s examine a strategy together. Firstly, if you go to church each week, that is probably about 1.5 hours. If you attend a small group, that’s probably another 2 hours. So in that case, we’re already up to 3.5 hours and almost a third of the way there in our normal routine! That’s encouraging. So how do we get to 10%? I propose doing it in small steps. I want to challenge you: this week, commit to 5% of your time dedicated to God. This might be service opportunities, personal prayer time or Bible study, church related activities, or anything else that you can in good conscience offer to the Lord with a pure heart as your time set aside for Him. Each week, add another percent or another hour, working your way to 10%. Once there, it might look like this: 1.5 hours for church, 2 hours for small group, 1 hour each week day in dedicated prayer time or Bible study, and 3.5 hours of time on your weekends for serving or more prayer and Bible study or whatever God leads you to do (when you start seeking things, you’ll find them popping up at or beyond your full capacity to participate in them). Find your own plan that works for you, understanding that some flexibility from week to week will be necessary. I also encourage you to find 1 or 2 “accountability partners,” among whom you can each report, not only to stay the course but also to share the joy of the experience.

Before we dive in, let’s be careful to get something straight. This plan in no way makes you more loved or more “right with God” in and of itself. Do not let the desire to complete the goal get in the way of the purpose behind it: seeing Jesus. Seeing Jesus more personally and meaningfully each day is the desired outcome. Some will be too burdened by this challenge for it to be beneficial. That’s ok. This is certainly not a requirement of God’s. However, it is an opportunity as much as it is a challenge. It is true that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20-22), for true faith is belief that results in action. However, the converse is also true—action with a “quid pro quo,” or “this for that,” attitude is faithless, concerning the salvation of Jesus Christ, in whom belief leads to everlasting life and cannot be earned by any number of good works in themselves (I would cite verses, but this is basically the entire New Testament.).

And I know something that will happen to you as you approach this challenge in sincerity and with eyes fixed upon Jesus. Firstly, you will have weeks where you fail to reach your goal. Don’t worry, just get right back up and try for the next week. Secondly, at first this will be hard. It will at times feel like pure joy in discovering God in ways you didn’t know before, but it will at times also feel like strict obedience that you have a very difficult time upholding. Here’s the great part: at some point down the road, if you stay consistent and sincere, it will begin to feel less and less like a burden, and more and more like your highest priority in each week. The experience with God and closeness through time spent with Him and for Him is rivaled by nothing else in this world. You will begin to miss it when you have a busy week and can’t get the time, and you will begin to cherish the weeks where you spend the most time with Him, forgetting that it was ever a burden in the beginning.

So don’t be discouraged as you set out on this journey. I encourage you to start small and stay small, such that your commitment matches your sincerity and practical ability to meet the goal. Also, I encourage you to push just slightly past your comfort zone. If you say, “I already do 8 hours each week and could do 9,” go for 9.5 hours. If you’re currently at 1.5 hours each week with no confidence in any additional time, take just 30 additional minutes one day of the week for starters. Ultimately, your hour log doesn’t matter, and unless you are a statistics lover or find organization in writing such things down, I would suggest not even writing down your time. Keep it in your head one week at a time, not keeping a record of past weeks, and try not to be any more legalistic than matches your genuine sincerity, which is the desire to know God. Do not do this in order to meet requirements that make you feel good and as though you’ve gained favor through things you’ve done. Do it not to gain favor, but to draw near to the Lord. If this is your simple motivation, it will be your simple, yet incomprehensibly powerful and joyful outcome.

The overarching point is that we can each spend more time with God. Use your commute to work to talk everything out with Him. It may feel like you’re doing all the talking for a while—that’s ok, start there. In time, you’ll begin to learn how to listen. I think every morning when you wake up, God looks expectantly at you, eagerly awaiting your conversation. Do you even acknowledge Him as you “pass by?” Do you sort of nod or give a muffled “hello?” Do you stop and have a brief conversation, showing obviously by your posture that you’re busy and should be on your way and cannot spend time on Him? Do you perhaps actually sit down to have a meaningful conversation, knowing that He cares about your every care and is listening? Do you ever ask Him what’s bothering Him or giving Him joy and listen to His heart? Perhaps wherever we are on this spectrum, we should each desire to move to the next level tomorrow morning. Then in no time move to the next level. Or if you’re very convicted, sit down with Him right now, as with a best friend or dearest loved one. Just be yourself—He already knows and loves you. See if you can hear Him in those moments, or in reading the Word, or in those you encounter around you as you come to know His heart. Speak it back to Him for concurrence. I think you’ll find an amazing new friend, an amazing providing Father, and an amazing life-changing Savior who is “with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20).

More ideas: if you find singing, or writing, or creating or any other gift an effective outlet of your worship, do those things in your 10% time offering to Him. Write Him a note, a letter, or a song. Sing to Him your favorite hymn or just make up your own words and tune, if you are so musically talented. Draw pictures of how you see Him and His relationship to you and those around you. Make something with your hands that is beautiful, if you are gifted by Him to do so, and give it to Him as an offering, perhaps as a gift to another friend or a stranger. I don’t know how you might worship and love Him, but I know He has gifted us each in specific ways and would be touched in His heart to receive such genuine gifts of our hearts and talents poured out back to Him.

Think of the child who has been given Christmas money by their parents. This child goes out and spends 90% of it on him or herself, but they take 10% and buy something heart-felt and meaningful for their parents out of love and appreciation. Would that parent’s heart not about melt in love? Or perhaps a mother taught her child how to paint, and the child immediately paints a picture of the two of them holding hands with a heart between them. How great that mother must feel. Or the father who shows his son how to fish at a young age, then when the son grows old, he begins to take his father fishing. That father will cherish a moment like that forever. When we turn back around the gifts of our parents, they are overjoyed…not by the gift, but by the sincere loving heart of their child.

Wouldn’t you love to make God feel that way today with even the smallest of gifts from your heart?

Growing Faith - One Summer and Winter at a Time

As I grow older and somewhat more mature, I am finding that great faith takes time. However short or long, it certainly takes real experience with God. Faith is something I’ve always been taught is essential, yet it was somewhat hard to grasp. The thing about faith is that it only makes so much sense until you have it—you can’t conceptualize real faith beyond your own until you have somehow grown to that extent of faith. Developed faith has a confidence with it, and though we observe others faith that is deeper than ours and we can imagine what it might be like, we do not carry confidence of true faith in our imagining—we simply don’t comprehend it yet.

After the disciples displayed a need for more faith, asking Jesus why they couldn’t drive out a demon:

Matt 17:20 – “He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."”

The faith of a mustard seed doesn’t understand the faith of the tree with mighty branches—not until it grows into such a tree of faith. The growing takes time, nurturing, and feeding. So how do we grow, feed, and nurture our faith? Well we don’t—if we could choose in the moment, we as little mustard seeds of faith would never choose the terrible things a tree can withstand and we have no vision of withstanding. But we do have an important first step.

Jesus in John 12:24-25: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

We must die. Our first death is to sin and living for ourselves in the world, but then we must die to our fears and exasperations of the next storm, in addition to our expectations and conceptions of how we could be used by God and be most pleasing in His sight. We must let God do the choosing, and our choice is simply to die to self.

Colossians 3:2-3 - “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

When we do this, we have exercised the faith of a mustard seed at first planting, but we will not become mighty trees overnight. God may do a great thing through us, but we likely did it less by faith and more by God’s direct intervention and “proving” His presence in the situation, for He knows the current limits of our faith. Gideon put out the fleece, just as we do so often…yet God did show himself in the fleece, as needed by Gideon’s less than full faith at the time. God is good--even in those times, we see Jesus and our faith is grown—but let’s desire to put out a few less fleeces as we grow (After all, how much more amazing when we haven’t asked for the fleece, yet God showed up with one for us!).

We first break through the soil into the atmosphere, not much more than a seed. But our faith is growing, and in ways that we could not understand as an unplanted seed; still, we desire the growth into the trees of faith we’ve encountered in the Bible or in person. But how do we get there? We might pray, “Lord, please give me the faith.” He certainly will—that is a prayer that will be answered in affirmation, but not in the way we first thought. We thought that God would impart in us an instant faith like an instant healing. Let me say that perhaps there have been individuals who have such an experience with faith, but that is extremely rare. For the vast majority, including me and likely you, this faith will have to be imparted one struggle at a time, one summer of obvious growth and winter of less obvious growth at time. And as saplings we can’t conceive of it, but one day we’ll recognize the growth that God has been cultivating, and we’ll love Him even more for it, as we glimpse a little more clearly who He is, perfect and welcoming, wonderful and sovereign, powerful and loving—and our faith will continue to grow and flourish.

If just now you desired faith, you have a great seed of Christ planted in you. If you have been frustrated with your lack of faith, you are a little sprout or sapling or anything short of the fully developed tree, yet with such potential (Let’s face it, we reach absolute full development in Heaven). Allow your faith to be exercised. It will feel like winter, it will feel like summer, but all the while you’ll be growing. We have to accept our pace.

Isaiah 40:31 – “but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

Sometimes we are accelerated to God in faith, soaring “on wings like eagles,” yet other times we must plod along and “walk and not be faint.” The desire is ours to display before God—the willingness and simple obedience-the growing is His. Paul in 1 Cor 3:6-7:

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.”

May your faith grow abundantly in the next season and the seasons that follow. I pray that you are encouraged to “fight the good fight” with patient endurance for your faith to come, “fixing our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith.”

Heb 12:1-3 – “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

Amen.

Pray It Through - “Lord, I’m asking again…”

Heb 4:15-16 – “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Have you ever hesitated in God’s presence? Have you ever prayed, confessing your struggles and concerns, but then stopped short of full disclosure? I have.

There are a lot of good reasons that you and I share this experience. I say “good” to mean compelling or logical reasons in the human sense, yet in the end, there is no truly good reason, for we became spiritually deprived in that moment. Deprived of the full power, love, and grace of our beautiful God.

Guilt first keeps us from confessing our every sin and struggle and worry. Just look at the first human encounter of sin in the Garden of Eden to see the “natural” human response to the awareness of sin in God’s presence: “They…hid themselves” (Gen 3:8). They physically hid because of such shame. This feeling of shame or guilt is good in that it demonstrates that we have the righteous wherewithal to recognize sin as sin. Furthermore, Jesus says in Matt 5:4 that “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Have you ever mourned your sin? The healthy outlet for the guilt of sin is spiritual mourning of the separation from God, which is sin, followed by Jesus’ promise of comfort. What a great and gracious outcome!

But going further, I have found myself hesitating in God’s presence when sin isn’t even in question. This is when I am self-conscious of repeatedly asking for the same thing. For you or I, this could be asking for something that we desire in life, or when we have been continuously fighting to overcome temptation, or just keeping our eyes fixed upon Jesus (Heb 12:2), yet we have failed to do so again.

These hesitations can be uniquely different because they are not necessarily sin related, but rather, our hesitation comes from having to once again ask for help. My thoughts are that I should have made more progress by now, but I feel like we’re right back at square one and therefore God must be…disappointed. And I don’t want to disappoint Him. In those moments I want to man up, gear up, armor up, suit up, just get up and conquer those things in God’s name. And I’ve already asked for help like 1000 times. I feel like I need to come back to Him with some progress instead of saying, “Lord I still need your help, I’m struggling…yet again.” You may identify with my sentiment. In fact, these thoughts make a lot of sense, concerning our interaction with those from which we ask for help on earth. How many times could you ask your teacher, professor, or mentor to show you how to do something before they would think you were just un-teachable? How many times could you ask your closest family member for forgiveness for the same wrong-doing before they may think that “you’ll never change?” How many times could you go back to your boss for a project review with no progress, asking again for help to start out on the first steps? In each case, not many times…certainly not as many times as I’ve had to approach God with those exact same requests. We see God as our Teacher, our Mentor, our Father, and even our “Boss,” and we apply what we know about humans in these roles to our perfect God. This of course leads us astray, for we have tried to build a Creator out of the creation. Realizing this, we can more easily understand why this approach is wrong, but we must then apply it to our prayer conversations with Him.

You see, inside, I desire to come back to God with a finished me. I desire to bring before Him a perfect me. I desire to submit myself to Him, a pleasing sacrifice, unblemished and pure. The problem is that of course, I cannot. In fact, I can only become those things by first coming to Him and confessing all my spiritual blemishes, impurities, and imperfections. That includes sin, yes, but it also includes the life-long pursuit of righteousness and purging of selfishness, which does indeed take an entire lifetime—and even an entire lifetime by itself is terribly insufficient because in Christ alone are we made perfect. But we are made perfect indeed (Eph 4:13; Col 1:22, 28). It is why we can come “boldly before His throne” (Heb 4:16). We come humbly, yet confidently before the throne of God and are made pure and perfect by Christ, who is “seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2). What an amazing instantaneous turnaround.

So what have you been praying to God over and over and over? Don’t stop. Pray it through to completion. Have you not only failed to make progress but even regressed in an area? Then we need Him even more than ever…and He already knows. Until you seek His strength and mercy, you will have neither. But instantly upon seeking Him, you will have both abundantly. Simply seek and find. Ask and receive. Knock and the door will be opened. (Matt 7:7-8, Luke 11:9-10) Have you knocked, entered, then somehow found yourself outside again? Knock again and the door will be opened again. The more honestly and transparently we come, splaying out all that is within our souls to God, the more immediately and gloriously His power of transformation can be realized in you and me. Hold nothing back.

If you’ve had the thought, “well, then it doesn’t matter what I do today, he’ll open the door again,” then you have taken this seriously the wrong way. At that moment, you are only going through the motions of knocking. Let me ask you this: if you show up at my home and hold your hand up in the motion of knocking, never actually knocking in sincerity, never making contact with the door, will I hear you? No, of course I will not, and will therefore not acknowledge you nor let you in. Be careful of “going through the motions.” Make sure you knock with all sincerity, and I assure you God will open His door of love, grace, mercy, healing, and strength wide to you. He has for me. He has for thousands and millions of your neighbors. He has for multitudes upon multitudes since the beginning of time. How do we know this? Start reading the Bible from Matthew 1:1 through John 21:25. It’s the most amazing Truth. I encourage you to read and judge for yourself. But don’t just go through the motions, or you’ll be wasting your time. Read it with the most sincerity you can muster, even as a skeptic. You will find answers. You will have some more questions. Keep digging and you will continue to find new answers and new questions, each bringing you closer to Truth, and along the way you’ll come to realize that there was no greater pursuit in your entire life.