All He Wants Me to Be

February 5, 2008

By Jerry Scott

Society is always comparing people! We create all kinds of lists of winners and losers: the richest, the worst-dressed, the best-dressed, who’s hot, who’s not.

Core characteristics of Christ-followers are humility and contentment, traits that cannot flourish if we are constantly calculating our wins and losses while striving to improve our social status. When we are driven by a need for others’ approval to validate our personal worth, we concern ourselves less about being authentically good and more about “looking good.”

Believer, do you realize it is possible to do all the right things for all the wrong reasons? You can attend worship regularly in order to build a strong relationship with the body of Christ, or you can do it because it causes others to admire your church attendance. Prayer, Bible study and Christian service can be done to please God and enhance spiritual vitality; or they can be done to gain status in a spiritual community. Spiritual acts done in the service of self are corrupt.

In Matthew 6, Jesus spoke of prayer, giving and fasting from the standpoint of keeping God as the focus of our spiritual service. Jesus reminds us that if we do our spiritual disciplines to gain the approval of others, our only empty benefit will be their applause.

“When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure — ‘playactors’ I call them — treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. …

“And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?

“Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. …

“When you practice some appetite-denying discipline to better concentrate on God, don’t make a production out of it. It might turn you into a small-time celebrity but it won’t make you a saint” (Matthew 6:2,5,6,16, The Message).

Here’s the most amazing truth — God loves you completely just as you are. There is nothing you can do that will make Him love you more than He does at this moment. Your significance as a person, your worth, is secure in His love. Settle that for yourself, then begin to live for the approval of just One Person. Make it your goal to be all God wants you to be, no more, no less. That is genuine humility and leads to sweet contentment.

— Jerry D. Scott is senior pastor at Washington (N.J.) Assembly of God.