God not interested in you proving how smart or successful you are

God does not care what you do.

Now before you go thinking that I've just lost it or that I certainly don't sound like a minister, especially one from a Baptist background, let me explain to you what I'm saying.

What I am not saying is that God doesn't care about you. He does. He knows everything about you and is extremely interested in everything about you. The Psalmist says "You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb." (119:13) God knows the smallest part of our DNA to the number of hairs upon our heads.

What I am saying is this: God is not interested in you proving how good you are, how smart you are or even how successful you are. Those things pale in comparison to your personal worth. God does not care what you do, but he is passionate about who you are. The parchments on your wall, the money in your wallet and credit card bills on your kitchen table may be impressive to others but not to God.

Now, does he want you to learn everything you possibly can about the subjects you are passionate about? Absolutely. Does God want you to know the blessing of being successful in your work? Yes. Is God concerned about you living free from the slavery of credit card debt? You bet he is. These are important but not his primary concerns. His primary concern is who you are, not what you do.

The prophet describes the actions of God with these words, "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." (Ezekiel 36:26)

God's desire is to perform a heart transplant, removing the rock-hard heart and replacing it with one that is full of passion. The rock-hard heart is calloused and convinced that personal significance comes from recognized achievements. A heart of flesh is malleable, one which godly character can be shaped and flow out of. God isn't interested in what you do as much as he is in who you are. Conduct flows from character. When he has your heart your actions will flow.

Rob Hurtgen is a husband, father, minister and writer. Read more from him at www.robhurtgen.wordpress.com.