Whose faith are we living?

So I'm starting a Hot Topics Bible study once a month for my senior highers and our first one is "Whose faith are we living and why?" It's a topic that I've had private conversations with many of my youth about and I decided that it's something we can delve into more as a group. As I'm preparing for this Bible study for next week, I watched Sunday, a short film by Rob Bell from nooma. It begs the questions, why do we go to church?, who are we doing it for?, does God need us to give us time, money, resources, etc? The answer is of course no. But if the answer is no then what should we be doing and why? Does God need me to serve Him at Faith? No. But now that I've handed myself over to God FINALLY as his servant here it's obvious to me that he wanted me here and he wants me to want to be here.

The thing is that so many of us are brought up in a "Christian" home. We go to church every Sunday, our parents wrote a check out every week, they volunteered for everything they could and then of course volunteered us for everything. And now we do the same thing, but we aren't doing it with a servant heart we are doing it because we are supposed to.

But now here we are... grown up, out of college, working through our first years of being an "adult" all by ourselves, figuring out how to make it look like we are doing all of the things that we should be doing whether we are actually doing them or not. See, my sin is that I struggle with why I do or don't do things but never actually do anything to make it better. Or at least I hadn't until lately. My attitude was very much like the religious leaders in Jesus time. Or in the words of a Snowflower and the Secret Fan that I just finished reading, "Obey, Obey, Obey and then do what you want anyway."

Is this how we are "serving" God? Is this how we are "worshipping" God? Is this how we are "giving glory/credit" to God for who He is? If so then we are all like the "vipers" from Jesus time. We talk the talk but we aren't living the walk. Sometimes I think, just like some of my youth, I'm doing things because they are expected of me and not out of my love. I know that for a long time I was here because I know God was putting me here, but I didn't come with a happy, servant minded, grateful heart. I came with guilt, frustration, irritation, and a mindset of "fine, I'll do it but I'm not giving it my all." And now I see that.

Last fall I talked to one of my pastors about putting my name of the call list and he said something to me that really helped change my mindset. He said that if I felt that I could serve God happily somewhere else then I needed to let him send me there. My response was that I didn't want to leave the people that I love so dearly here and that I was really feeling like I was starting to make a connection with people but I still felt so far away from my family and I felt like I was missing a lot. He then responded with words of wisdom from his dad, "Don't be so selffish and conceited to think that God needs you here to serve His people. God doesn't need you here and if you aren't happy then he doesn't want you here either." (It was the same advice his father had given him during his first call right before he took the call here). And then he said, "If it's time to put your name on the call list then we will you and help you in every way in that endeavor, but if you chose to stay here then you needed to pour your heart into it and really be here."

Again, whose faith and I living and why? God and I are out the the honeymoon stage and into the real life marriage stage. It's no longer trying to please each other because that's what you do, but our relationship is in need of constant work and rejuvenation. It's a scarey thing to think about because it's not easy anymore, it's something that I have to give me heart to wholly and trust God more than anything or get out and admitt that I'm not who I say I am.

So last fall I decided that I'm in. That I love God and trust him and want to give my heart to his people here. I'm working to live the life of service that God has called and asked to me do. It's hard work because my faith isn't being automatically fed because I wake up and go to religion class like in college or because my friends and I are doing a Bible study together so I'm in a place where I'm surrounded by God in obvious ways. Now I have to make sure that I take time for God and that I'm not doing it because it's expected or feel guilty about but because in my heart I want more than anything to be a servant to God and his people and I want to give Glory/credit to his name!

My life with Christ is a marriage. It's a committment that will last forever, and even when I fail on my end my Christ will be a better spouse and do the work for me because he knows my heart. It's an amazing adventure that God has invited me to join him in and I accept the challenge. I know that it's a long hard challenge, but it's a challenge that I want to give my heart to and need to give my heart to because God has been more than amazing enough to ask me into his family!

So whose faith are we living and why? What makes us do the things that we are doing? How excited are we about the places that we are going?

Praise God that He is the King of my heart and will help it to expand and grow.