Duty

Duty. That word makes my skin crawl. When someone says duty, they generally mean serving one's country or volunteering once a month or something like that, but duty is used as a chain around our necks. "It is your duty to God to go to church Johnny", might say one mother, but does that really sound like duty to God or duty to man? God gave us free will so that loving him is our choice, not his or your youth pastor's, or anyone else's. If we are going out of duty to God, what does that say about us? It says that we consider God a check box. We check him off once a week or maybe even twice a week if we are really ''spiritual" and then we just go about our week normally, to us He is no more than something to overcome in the week. Why do we see him like that? Why do we feel the need to go out to get close to him when he is sitting on the couch with you? We say that we believe that God is everywhere but "going to church" shows what we really believe; God is a quaintity, an energy that needs to be replenished now and then. If you wanted to talk with your friend and grow in your relationship with that friend you would go get coffee or something right? Why is it then that we only grow our relationship with God at a church? Because it is hard to have a personal relationship.

We were talking a few days ago about mother's day, how it is a set apart date to celebrate mom so that you can make up for all the times you were "too busy" to talk. We need mother's day because we choose not to have a good relationship with our mom's. Church is the same way. We check God off of our list so that we don't feel guilty for not talking to him. Just remember this, you can't fool God. You may be able to sneak past the fact that you haven't talked to your mom by writing her a card or sending her flowers, but God looks at the heart.

Since we left stopped having church, I haven't felt guilty about not going to church once. I have a realtionship with God, I've thrown the checklist away and taken out my stationary.