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Are You Addicted to God?

June 2, 2019 by Matt Pavlik 2 Comments

What is your ‘why’ that drives you out of bed every morning? If you’re relying on something other than God and His calling, you’re missing out on God’s best.

I spent the first twenty years of my life on the outside looking for some sense of meaning. I was desperate to find something more powerful than the emptiness of day-to-day life. When I became a Christian at twenty, I finally found my answer.

You can do better than what the world has to offer. You can start each day with motivation that originates from deep within you.

You can do better than caffeine

Caffeine stimulates, but it doesn’t connect you to your Creator.

Everyone has a purpose. Some people are aware of their calling. But too few invest the continuous effort required to reject the lies the world offers and grow into their God-given identity. Play the long game.

Playing the long game means looking at life with long-range vision. What is happening today is never the end, but only the beginning. Each day has its purpose but also builds towards a bigger plan tomorrow.

You can do better than boring

Life is boring without God. But God’s plan unfolds in new ways every second of the day.

God didn’t waste a second of Jesus’s life. He had a purpose and a strategy for everything He accomplished. Jesus lived up to His identity and fulfilled His deepest longing. Now He calls you to find your passion and advance God’s kingdom.

To advance God’s kingdom, you must be connected to Jesus. Apart from Him, you can’t accomplish anything of spiritual worth (John 15:5). When you are enlightened by God’s Spirit, you have the power to advance God’s purposes.

You can do better than random

Life is mysterious. God doesn’t reveal everything about His plans, but He wants you to seek and find spiritual insight.

God knew you before you were born. You have a destiny to pursue. Your identity doesn’t change, but how you see yourself changes over your lifetime. Pursue your identity and enjoy abundant life.

Abundant life comes from participating with God in His work. You can’t have life to the fullest without participating in spiritual growth. God’s plan for your life involves your spiritual growth and helping others with their spiritual growth.

You can do better than worrying

Short-term solutions provide a false hope. Then, you’re back to worrying about where to find your next fix.

God is the perfect fit for the receptors in your brain. He’s better than drugs or medicine. When you’re connected to Him, you experience a transcendent peace. God wired you to connect with Him.

Don’t be afraid to ask God to speak encouragement to you. I don’t always feel great about life. There are plenty of distractions. When you feel discouraged, that’s a perfect time to revisit your ‘why’. Ask God why you should continue when life isn’t going the way you hoped it would.

You can have passion for living and become unstoppable

Being addicted to God means you have at least tasted that God is good (Psalm 34:8). Life can be challenging. You won’t be able to do everything right all the time. But in your heart you know you can return to God’s goodness. Once you’ve tasted God, you realize nothing else comes close to satisfying like He does.

Are you waking up to who God is? Can you see His reality?

You are unstoppable because you have access to God at all times. God’s kingdom is real and your participation counts.

Tomorrow morning when you wake up, think about what motivates you to keep doing what you need to do. Can you sense what is at stake if you give up?

Many things satisfy earthy desires. These aren’t necessarily wrong. But…

You can do better.

God, awaken our spiritual senses to You. Reveal more of who you are. Help us not forget there’s more to this life than we can see.

Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay

Filed Under: Spiritual Formation, Core Longings, Identity, Self-Care Tagged With: desire, Growth, purpose, suffering

How Much Pain Are You In?

August 11, 2018 by Matt Pavlik Leave a Comment

When the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain required to change, you become sufficiently motivated to grow. If you’re blocking the pain, you’re holding back your growth. If you’re experiencing more pain than you can handle, you’re too isolated from love.

To grow into your identity, you need God. God is love and only He can restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. I believe Peter was speaking from his experience of denying Christ (John 18:17, 25–27) when he wrote this verse:

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

—1 Peter 5:10

  1. Restore means to return to a former condition, place, or position.
  2. Confirm means to make publicly valid.
  3. Strengthen means to support, increase, and reinforce.
  4. Establish means to achieve permanent acceptance.

Notice the progression. Restore and confirm recover what was lost. God wants to heal you. But strengthen and establish go beyond to the unimaginable. When God establishes you, you’re permanently accepted. God has called you to eternal glory. You can’t get more permanently accepted than that.

Peter experienced God restoring, confirming, strengthening, and establishing him (John 21:15-17). You can, too!

Filed Under: Self-Care, God's Kingdom, Healing, Identity Tagged With: Forgiveness, Growth, suffering

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