Just Another...God.

Matthew 16:25
25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

Mike Guzzardo was praying before he was about to head to Africa on a mission trip. He asked God to tell him what he should inform the teenagers of during the summer. God kept telling him that the issue is that too many people see a relationship with him as just another thing to add to their "to do" list. In fact, God specifically told Mike that, "A relationship with me was never meant to be an addition; it's an exchange."

If you think about it, it's true! Between work, school, and a social life, it is difficult to make God the main priority. Instead, what we end up doing is making him one of our priorities. God, and ultimately Christ, should be the center of our life, and everything should follow behind.

In order for this to happen, we have to surrender our entire life to God so that we can treasure his abundance that he offers. So, we can't just divvy up a portion of our life and give it to God while we control the remainder. It has to be a full size dinner portion of our life that we give to him. It's like a favorite children's book that we still can't get rid of today. We want to keep it and we want to hold onto it; we're not ready to give it up and move onto to the next part of our journey (with Christ). It's time to move out of the secure and familiar zone now!

I've said it before, but we need to let Go and let God. God wouldn't expect you to do something that would hurt you. He cares about you. And he wants to guide you from point A to point B through your surrender to him so that you can be at the receiving end of the abundant life he offers.

Happy September!