There’s nothing you can do to make God love you more

FAITH MATTERS

Have you ever noticed that no one thanks God after they lose the big game?

Here’s a comment you’ll never hear on TSN or during the Olympic coverage: “All glory to God for helping me give less than 100 per cent out there today. I know that it was God’s blessing in my life that enabled me to come in a distant fourth.”

Standup comedians and atheist commentators have made much of the fact that the winners in our sporting events are quick to thank God for their success … but what of the losers? Does God not care about them? Shouldn’t God have bigger concerns than the outcome of the 100-metre-sprint or whatever your favourite sport is?

Of course, God has bigger concerns than the outcome of the game. He’s more focused on the participants of the game.

And those who are genuinely connected to God, can and do, offer the Lord praise and recognition for their efforts, even the less than successful ones. And why is that? Because the genuinely faithful know that their identities are not defined by a gold medal, a Stanley Cup, World Championship or Grey Cup. Ttheir identities are found, formed and fulfilled in, and by, God.

In fact, one of the main realities of the Christian faith is that God accepts us, not because of the things that we do, but on the strength of our relationship with God.

Saint Paul, writing to the Ephesian believers, shared that it is by the grace of God and through faith that we are saved, that we are brought into relationship with God, not by anything we do.

Now it is true that committing oneself to knowing God in a personal way does change us. It enables us to be more than we were, to be better than we were, but that comparison is solely and always a self-comparison. Tracking our spiritual progress against others misses the point, but self-examination, recognizing where we were, compared to where we are today on our spiritual journey is a gift of God.

So whether you accomplish the equivalent of a world record in your professional or personal life, know that you are loved by the God of the universe. And there’s nothing you can do to make God love you any more.

And face your next challenge knowing that there is nothing you can do to make God love you any less.

Even if you finish a distant fourth. Rev. Brad Peters is the pastor of First Baptist Church Niagara Falls (3900 Dorchester Rd.) and serves as chaplain for the Niagara Falls Fire Department. You can contact him at 905-3547836 or bpeters12@cogeco.ca.