The MORE of God's Love

My pastor did it again!

On Sunday, my pastor shared a message which reminded me of God's great love for me.  I feel as if these messages are an answer to prayer, because for the past month I've been trying to understand God's love.  For two weeks in a row, God used my pastor to help me understand His love more.

There are two ways to interpret that last sentence.  The first is that God wants me to understand more of His love, but the second is that He wants me to understand the more of His love.  It is the second interpretation that stood out most this week.  Let me explain:

As my pastor stood on stage addressing the congregation, he mentioned what God told him during his morning prayer time.  While my pastor was praying for the congregation that morning, he felt as though God had impressed the idea of "more" onto his heart.   As my pastor was reminding us that God wants to do more through our congregation, I felt God impressing that He wants to do more in me.

I don't know about you, but I am a results-oriented person.  I love progress, and become discouraged by setbacks.  My love for progress has become so distorted, that God decided to teach me a lesson about faithfulness this past year.  It was during times of hardship, that God taught me that He is more focused on faithfulness than progress.   Just read what Ecclesiates 3:12-13 says about this:

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.

Do you see that?  God created us to be satisfied by the "toil" in life.  Even more, we should not only be satisfied in the toil, but we should see it as a gift from God.  We should feel blessed to do our job, regardless of whether we are making forward progress.  But that raises a new question: if it's possible to experience satisfaction in the toil, why do I become so frustrated when I fail to make progress?  I believe it's because I don't understand the difference between faithfulness and progress. 

Focusing on faithfulness is a decision to seek God's approval above man's; focusing on progress is the decision to seek man's approval above God's.  The reason we lack contentment at work is the same reason we are a result oriented society: we have take our eyes off of God.

"OK," you ask, "but what does all of this have to do with the idea of God's love, and your pastor's message?" 

As my pastor was sharing that God wanted to do more through us, I felt like God was saying that He wanted to do more in me.  As I thought about that idea for a moment, I realized God's desire to do more in me, is more precious than God's desire to do more through me.  Why?  Because His desire to do more in me increases my value.  

At first I didn't understand this, but that's because I had a misguided view of value.  

Unfortunately, I often see my value in terms of purpose.  I feel more valuable when someone entrusts me to a greater purpose.  Although it's honorable to have a great purpose, a greater purpose doesn't doesn't necessarily mean I'm more loved.  Take an example of serving overseas. 

Serving as a missionary or soldier overseas is a great purpose, but how many mothers want their kids to go overseas?  None that I've met.  And why is that?Because those mothers love their children too much to give them a great purpose.  

The value of an object is dependent upon the purpose it provides to another, the value of a person is dependent upon the love it shares with another.

When God says He wants to do more IN us, it means that He wants to share a deeper and greater love with us.  I don't think there is anything more awesome in the world than sharing a loving relationship with the God who created us and then died to bring us back.  But what about you?  Do you see your value in terms of your purpose or in terms of God's love?