Work-Saints

I've just been hearing a story about a person who seems in danger of exchanging being in love with God with doing a lot of things for God. It reinforces for me just what an easy temptation this is for all Christians and especially for Christian leaders of any kind. 

Doesn't loving God mean wanting to do a lot of things for him? Well...maybe. But it definitely doesn't work the other way around - ie just doing a lot of things for God doesn't automatically indicate a heart that is hot for Jesus, a life full of the Holy Spirit, an identity rooted in worship. It might be that doing a lot is simply a substitute for those things, a displacement activity to help us ignore the fact that there is something critical missing at the centre.

The phrase used was "work-saint". It is a horrible phrase but one that on occasions describes me too. Feeling my worth is defined by how much I do for God - and how well - rather than by Christ. That God's love for me goes up and down according to my activity. There is a fine line between that and doing visible religion like the hypocrites in Matthew 6. Work saints tend to delight themselves in the amount they achieve rather than in God. Their hearts are happy in activity or knowledge or success rather than in God. 

I hate the oft-heard phrase "God has done everything for you, so now you must do everything for him." It sounds like it ought to be true, but it isn't true. It drives an endless, joyless pay-back ethic because you can never do enough.

If we think we have to pay back for grace we haven't grasped grace. The correct way to say it is this: God has done everything for you, in order that you can enjoy him and enjoy worshipping him (which is the Great Joy) for ever. God Himself is the great treasure of the gospel. Not the work that you can do in his service. 

If you are a work-saint reading this it might be time to carve a day out of your diary to do nothing other than go for a long walk in the countryside during which you worship. Or, failing that, put on a good worship CD and enjoy delighting yourself in the Lord.