An Invitation to Return to Being Who You Were Created to Be All Along
Spend any great length of time in church and, sooner or later, you’re going to be introduced to the idea of giving God the “first fruits” of your labour. This is usually presented within the context of tithing and comes with a whole host of biblical data to back it up. However, as Paul reminds us in his second letter to Timothy, everything in scripture is useful as a teaching and training tool ,so what if this ancient biblical tradition has a wider application than just money or harvest?
What if we could also give God the “first fruits” of our day? As we explore this, it feels important to remember that God has promised to never leave or forsake you. If you don’t intentionally give Him the first fruits of your day, He’s not going to storm off in a bad mood with you! And although we talk about giving God the first fruits of our day, this is a gift that is so much more for our benefit than it is for God’s. Does God love doing life with you? Absolutely. But does He need to do life with you? Is there something about you that completes Him? Not so much!
Why then does a day started with God have this tendency to be so much more delightful than the one where we rush into it without giving Him a second thought? Simply put … because we were created to do life in relationship with God. It was our default, go to, way of doing life before that tragic moment way, way back in the garden of Eden. When we believed the lie that we were born to be independent, when we fell into the trap of trying to figure it all out on our own, we moved away from God’s best for us. Thankfully though, we live in a post-resurrection age where Jesus has done it all and we don’t need to live a life separate from God any more. One might argue that, thanks to what Jesus did at the cross, we now get to return to being the people we were created to be all along!
It shouldn’t really surprise us therefore that the day goes so much better when it’s started with God. And this isn’t about instituting rules and legalism. God’s not a genie where if you put in time with Him, out will pop a lovely day! This is simply about recognising what Paul is really advocating when he tells us to pray continually. This isn’t about walking around with your head bowed and your eyes closed - talk about the fastest way to end up in a road traffic accident! Instead, it’s about intentionally doing life with God, chatting with Him as you go about your day, asking for His input, thoughts and advice, about all the things you get involved with in a day.
Some of you have heard before the story of how God introduced me to what this kind of relationship really looks like. I’d grown up in church, “prayed the prayer” when I was 12 or 13 but it wasn’t until my mid-20s, through a bible-based weight loss course, that I was introduced to the idea that God is interested in all aspects of my life. (Including, for the purposes of weight-loss, what I put in my mouth!)
There is nothing about you that is uninteresting to God. His thoughts concerning you are more numerous than the grains of sand on the beach and He is for you, not against you. If this is a revelation to you, if you’ve believed the lie that there are some areas of your life that are too small for God to bother with, today is the day to renew your mind, break agreement with the lies, and start taking God at His word!
It starts with a simple conversation:
“God, what lies have I been believing about you? What is your truth? And how do you see me?”
Because God saw you and knew you before He laid the foundations of the world. He created you to do life with Him - all of life, not just the bits you believe are pretty enough or important enough for Him to be interested in!
And so now it’s over to you. Some people reading this are nodding along in agreement because they already have this wonderful, life-giving kind of relationship with God. If that’s you, brilliant, keep going! Take this blog post as confirmation that you’re not crazy, that this is what you were born for! But for someone reading this, God is whispering to you through these words, wooing you back into relationship with Him.
Maybe, like me, you grew up in church and week after week you find yourself promising God that this is the week you’ll read your bible and pray more, except that nothing ever seems to change. Church feels like a duty rather than a joy and you find yourself wondering, is this really all there is?No, my friend, this is not all there is, this is not the life you were created for. You were created for so much more! A life where every day feels like a brand new adventure with your heavenly Dad and you can’t wait to see where you’ll journey together next!
If that’s you, this is your invitation to step into a vibrant, real as the relationship you have with your best friend, kind of relationship with the One who knows you, loves you and is singing songs over you right now in this moment. And it starts with “hello?”
#relationshipnotreligion #invitations