I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

John 10:10 (NIV)

About five years ago, I was on lunch break about to cross the street to pick up some food when I had a life-changing moment with the Holy Spirit. He said to me, “You have spent your whole life trying to show me how much you love me. But what if I spend the rest of your life showing you how much I love you?” Given my unsuccessful efforts to demonstrate to God how much I loved him for most of my life, I said yes. And in that moment, a selfish revivalist was born.

I say “selfish revivalist” because my goal from that moment onward was, well, giving Jesus every opportunity to make good on his offer. I abandoned my efforts to be a good Christian and please him. Instead, my object in life became giving him every opportunity to please me. Or, I should say, bless me. My goal was to pursue a life of abundant blessing. I reoriented my life around one objective: the blessed life.

All of this sounds so selfish, especially coming from my traditionally religious background. I had been taught the purpose of the religious life was to serve God, to live a life of such great sacrifice that he takes notice of us and rewards us, either now or in the life to come. But the well-kept secret of the Christian life is that, first of all, we really cannot please God in this way, at least not by our service. If we set out with the objective to please God by our service, we will fail.¹ This is what the apostle Paul is telling us more than anything in the seventh chapter of Romans. Sowing to the flesh is not merely sinning; it is also striving to please God by our actions. Such efforts will end in a life where we are constantly striving and never managing to measure up to an impossible standard.

Secondly, God has chosen to please us.² It took me a long time to realize the Cross was not an IOU placed upon my life but rather the most extravagant expression of God’s willingness to bless me freely. We can know this for sure because we did not deserve any of it. If God wanted us to demonstrate how much we love him, he could have done nothing and given us the chance to do so. Instead, he chose to go to the Cross and die for us while we were yet sinners.

And having died for us, God has chosen to shower us with blessings.³ It is his way of demonstrating love, and also his way of empowering us to do the very things that please him. Because we cannot do what God requires on our own. It is not a matter of trying harder. It is a matter of being dead in our old nature, and needing to be raised to life with him. It is a matter of God’s Spirit doing in us what the flesh could never do. In other words, for us to live as God has created us and called us to live, he must bless us.

Besides, it is impossible to pursue a life of being blessed by God and remaining selfish for long. Granted, if I think being blessed is asking for things that I might spend them on my sinful desires,⁴ then that would be selfish. But God does not answer such prayers. Instead, he brings us into a life of true blessing, one where our sinful desires are purified and true life is made manifest. He heals us, restores us, and empowers us. We have peace to overcome every storm. We experience his unfathomable love and encounter his beauty. He satisfies our every desire not with sinful things, but with good things, that our youth may be renewed.⁵ As he does, all we do for him flows not from a place of religious compulsion and fear of never doing enough, but from a place of genuine gratitude and passion, overflowing with the love and power God gives.

This day, do not shrink back from his willingness to bless you because you think you are being selfish. Such selfishness is likely the very way God has ordained that you step into all he has for you, for your sake and for the sake of the world around you.

Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash

1. Romans 7:14-20 ↩︎
2. Ephesians 1:3-7 ↩︎
3. Romans 8:3-4 ↩︎
4. James 4:3 ↩︎
5. Psalm 103:5 ↩︎