As I read through Isaiah 58 today, I was struck by God's response to the people as to why He wasn't noticing their fasting and sacrifice. "I will tell you why! It's because you are living for yourselves even while you are fasting." (Isaiah 58:3 NLT) This sentence sent my mind into a whirl of thought about my own life and my own motives. So often I get frustrated with God for not noticing my good works and often point to the way that I've sacrificed my time and energy to serve Him, and yet when I take a step back I begin to realise that many of my motives and indeed this prayer comes from a selfish place. Why do I do the things that I do? What are my motives? Do I serve God and others to make myself feel good? To get noticed? To get a blessing from God? How often do I not do things that God has asked me to do because I'm tired or have something better in mind? The longer I thought about this, the more I began to see how selfish I can be at times and how much time I think and pray about me and my needs. This then raised the question in my head of,
'Is it possible to follow Jesus and live for ourselves?'
Would love to hear your thoughts.
1 comment:
I am not christian. Yet from some far off place I believe I may have the same aura buddha or jesus had. Nevertheless, I believe it is possible to follow jesus and live for yourself. By doing things with a motive to please god you are wanting him to notice things for personal gain or salvation, but when you do things to help people around you then you are truly doing a good thing. And if you live to help people around you then you are pleasing god, in a sense, and you can still live for yourself. Expect and Ask of nothing. Not even to be noticed. Live selfless. maybe not in a literal sense but care about not only yourself but the world and the people in it. That would please god. And that would be how to follow jesus. And live for yourself. You will find that through helping others, you help yourself.
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