A Big Ol Pile of “Should!”

“I don’t go to church as much as I SHOULD!  I don’t pray as much as I SHOULD!  

Have you ever caught yourself saying or thinking this?  

My question is, Do we ever arrive at this magical land of “SHOULD?”

I was listening to Christian radio recently and heard a song called, “these hands are tired.”  

The writer said that he was writing the song about how he struggles with not reading the Bible as much as he SHOULD!  I think that this song is popular because most Christians can relate to this feeling.  

We go to church like we SHOULD and preachers get out their shovels and load us down with a whole lot of SHOULD!

“We don’t give like we SHOULD!”

“We don’t volunteer like we SHOULD!”

“We don’t love as much as we SHOULD!”

Unfortunately the preacher isn’t the only one.  It seems like everyone else in the church somehow can add up to the SHOULD list.  When you talk to them they SHOULD all over you as well.

We leave the church which God created to be a place of encouragement, more loaded down with guilt, shame, and remorse than which we came in. 

But can anyone please describe to me what this magical land of SHOULD really looks like? 

How much SHOULD we pray? Once a week, every day, 3 hours every day?

How much SHOULD we read our Bible? Every day, 3 chapters every day, Proverbs once a month?

How much SHOULD we give? Pocket change, $20, 10% of our income?

When we think that God is only interested in our performance, we are never sure of our position with him.  We never arrive at this magical place called SHOULD!  We always think that we aren’t adding up and we SHOULD be doing more.

Listen to what Paul wrote to a group of believers in Ephesus: “God saved you by his GRACE when you believed.  And you can’t take credit for this: it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”

It sounds to me like Paul is saying that we didn’t BEGIN our relationship with God by doing good things.  So why do we think that we KEEP it by doing good things?

God is unrestrained in his love for you and did everything that had to be done so that we could have RELATIONSHIP with him.  Jesus took our punishment for ALL of our sins.  His motive was LOVE not DUTY!  All God asks in return is for you to believe (aka put your trust in him.)    

When we trust God, we avoid sin, not because we know God will be mad at us, but because we know that it will break his heart and destroy our lives.

We read his word because we want to know his heart, not because we SHOULD.

We pray because we want to talk to God, not because we SHOULD.

The Old Covenant was all about SHOULD.  Jesus died to bring about an entire new paradigm, which isn’t about performance but relationship!