What is God trying to do to us?

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live”

(Galatians 2:20)

We would all probably agree that we want to be a better person than we are.  Perhaps we look at ministries and people serving the Lord around the world and wish we could be more like them.  We know the bible tells us that “all have sinned,” and when we read those words, we realize we fall way short of who we should be.  So, we start working on becoming who we think God wants us to be.  We read books about how to be a better…whatever.  We pray harder, work harder, study harder, try harder.  Hoping that at some point we will get it right.

But what if I told you that God’s goal is not to make us better.  Now that should have your attention.  It’s not that God doesn’t want us to become a better person, a better wife, a better mother, a better grandmother, a better friend, or a better neighbor.  He does delight when we do better in all those ways.  But you see, there is nowhere in scripture that tells us God is in the business of recycling, reforming, remolding, repairing, or revising any human being.

That is because God knows the world doesn’t need to see good people doing their best for God.  Nor does the world need to see Christianity living our best for him.   The world needs to see God doing His work through His people.  There are enough good people in the world.  People who have no personal relationship with Jesus Christ yet do many good things.  God wants to show this world what righteousness looks like.  His righteousness, filling his human creation.  So how does God make his fallen humanity righteous?  Well, first it is done through a relationship with Jesus Christ.  But that is really the beginning of what God wants to do.  The bible is full of verses that tell us what God is ultimately up to.  Verses like Romans 6:6, II Corinthians 4:11, II Timothy 2:11, and Galatians 2:20 to name a few.

God is working to bring each of us to the place where we die to self and live for Christ alone.  The reason is that our greatest weakness as humans is our self-confidence.  “I do it by myself.”  It is self-confidence that causes us to deny Christ his rightful place in our lives and in this world.  Our self-confidence is really the enemy of Jesus Christ.

So, you see, what God is really trying to do is to kill us!  That’s right, kill our self-confidence and self-seeking attitudes.  That may sound strange, but the real reason God is trying to kill us all is because…….dead people don’t sin!

                                                          Darlene