“If You Do Your Part”
If you are a Christian who listens to sermons. How many times have you heard “if you do your part God will do his”? That’s great sentiment but if we don’t understand God’s part we end up confused and disappointed. Some people end up angry at God after a few rounds of this perform and expect cycle.
God is not obligated to follow the principles that we think describe him. Things like “if you do this, God will do that” or “if you do your part God will do his”. They can be accurate but are not necessarily always accurate.
God is a person, not a law, and he is not a set of religious rules of thumb. He won’t be confined to principles summarized for our intellect.
We cannot summarize him and his ways in our day to day life then live by the principles. This is a mistake, this is how academia works when we study a topic.
Extracting Principles
Some are good at analyzing a bible story, extract principles then declaring “you can duplicate that principle and God will respond in a certain way.” But he responds differently to everyone.
Jesus Christ is not obligated and will not be manipulated regardless of how good our attitude and motives are. He is not on call to our expectations regardless of how eloquent and convincing the sermons were.
It’s a moment by moment surrender, like a blind following, like a blind and confused man being led by the hand. All we know is him, his voice, his directions, his actions, his hand guiding. This is relaxing to me, it relieves stress because it means I don’t have to perform. There isn’t a set of laws or expectations that I must adhere to.
It is much easier than we’ve been taught, we simply follow and surrender, listen for him and we do ONLY as we see him doing. Its not helpful to go on autopilot assuming what God wants based on some sermon or study.
