What's the real mission

Behavior modification is easy. Any animal trainer can teach us how to get people to behave in a certain way. This is the business of con men and wardens. God's goal in our life is much higher than that. God is on a mission to change hearts.

God's mission is accomplished when we change our behaviors for the sole purpose of drawing closer to Him. It's what happens when we stage a revolt against our flesh and purposely do the opposite of what it craves for the good of the Kingdom that shapes us into His ideal for us. When our flesh wants to lash out at someone whose hurt our feelings but we restrain ourselves and put the concerns of the Gospel ahead of our own, we honor God. This is God's mission in our life. To shape us into the person we'd be if Adam had never allowed that serpent to deceive him and his wife. God has no interest in watching us sit like a poodle wanting a biscuit. He's not amused by us going through ritualistic calisthenics. It doesn't delight God to see us go through the motions of a church service. We do those things for our benefit. We do those things to keep our flesh in its proper place so we can govern it.

Prayer and daily scripture reading serves to remind our flesh that we serve God. It's in the daily practice of studying scripture and diligently seeking God that our minds are renewed. We don't do these things as if we're doing God a favor. We do these things, if we are doing them properly, for the sole purpose of reminding our flesh of who's boss. Outside of that, the daily routine has little value. If we set out to do these things just to appease Santa God and hopefully curry favor with him, we soon lose our energy for it. We just don't have enough resolve to do these things for the wrong reasons for very long. But if we focus on the real mission, we eagerly fall into a happy routine.

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason takes all the value out of doing the right thing. The value of the sacrifice is crucial because that's what attracts the grace of God. Behaving as a model Christian for the wrong reasons is just as damaging as improper behavior. Behaving for the purpose of currying favor is not a sacrifice. It is duplicitous and unholy. Behaving well for the wrong reasons is actually self-worship and God sees right through it. God can tell when our motives are selfish, He wouldn't be much of a God if He couldn't.

So if God's real mission in our life is not to get us to quit cussing and drinking, but restore us to person we'd be if sin never entered the world, then what's our real mission? Our real mission is to please God. Our mission is to weigh every decision and action on this scale: Does this please the Lord? If it doesn't, we shouldn't do it. If it does, we should do it quickly, courageously and lovingly.

Our mission tomorrow morning is not to read x number of verses or say a specific number of prayers. It would be in our best interest to do these things because that behavior will help us achieve our actual goal but it's not our actual goal. Our actual mission tomorrow morning is to please the Lord. Our mission is to please God with every step we take and decision we make. This should set us free. This should clean up our to-do lists. If we eliminate every behavior in our live's that fails this test, we'd replace clutter with abundance. Where there was once noise and activity, there would be music and purpose.

It will take courage to do this. There will be some habits and some associations that need to be broken. But take heart, God is delighted when we do things for the sole purpose of pleasing Him. I guarantee you that you will be delighted with the way He rewards you for it. James 4:8 says "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." His real mission is to mold us into someone we should have been all along. Our real mission is to happily join Him in this.