My husband and I like to read. A lot. He reads quite a bit faster than I do, so I often question him about whatever book he is currently reading in order to determine whether I want to read it later. However, I have learned that the answers I get to “Are you enjoying that book?” are very consistent. Occasionally I will get a “Not really,” but most of the time the answer is simply, “So far.” He will never, ever commit to liking a book while he is still reading it. After all, he doesn’t know the end of the story yet.

And the end of the story is really important, isn’t it? What if Gollum didn’t fall into the fire in the Return of the King? For that matter, the movie version of the Lord of the Rings is thematically very different from the books because it leave out the end, “The Scouring of the Shire.” What if Darcy and Elizabeth never got married? What if Poirot (or Gibbs and the rest of the NCIS gang) didn’t solve the mystery?

I started to think about the importance of the end of the story Sunday evening. My husband and I had never seen Jesus Christ Superstar and decided to watch a recording of the recent version. We knew some of the music and knew, of course, that the theology was problematic but decided it would be interesting, especially since there were some excellent singers in the cast.

As we were watching, I liked it better than I expected to. Obviously, the writer didn’t “get” who Jesus is or anything about his motivations, but much of the story was surprisingly accurate. And the whipping scene, while hard to watch in some ways, was very effective. But then we got to the end. Instead of the biblical events of darkness in the afternoon, the temple curtain ripped from top to bottom, a spear stabbed into the side, and a hastily wrapped body laid in a borrowed tomb, we had a bright light backlighting a cross with Jesus hanging on it floating off into the air and away from the audience. Cool effect, but what a horrible ending!

It reminded me of a church back in Pflugerville that always had their Easter drama on Friday and ended at the cross. When asked, they would explain that you had to come back on Sunday for the rest of the story.

It doesn’t end at the cross. Sunday was coming. And if you leave out Sunday with the empty tomb and the risen savior, you can’t possibly understand who Jesus is or why he did what he did, because the death was necessary, but it was meaningless without the resurrection.

Of course, one mistake that Christians sometimes make is to think that the empty tomb is end of the story. We forget that there’s a huge section of New Testament that is all about living in response to the cross and the empty tomb.

Then he is coming back for us. And our story doesn’t actually have an end once we accept him, because his story never ends.

One thing that sometimes makes me cringe is hearing others talk about the things they are “going to do for God.” Sometimes that phrase is just misspeaking a bit, but sometimes it is exactly what is meant. But God never actually called us to do things “for” him.

I see two sources of danger in doing things for God. The first is very simply that we humans are prone to get it wrong. A huge example of that is the Crusades, but we do the same in small ways on a regular basis. Oswald Chambers described it this way: “We show our ignorance of Him in the very way we decide to serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, and hurt Him by our defense of Him” (My Utmost for His Highest). Every time we defend the Gospel in a hateful spirit, every time we denounce the sinner instead of the sin, every time we water down the gospel message in order to get people in the doors of the church, we act “for” God in a way that is not helpful and is often harmful to the cause of Christ.

Not all actions taken for Christ are actually in opposition to him, of course. The person who doesn’t particularly like young children but takes on the 4-year-old Sunday School class because somebody has to do it and genuinely does the best she can may be doing more good than harm, at least on the surface. But if that decision was a response to a human plea acted on in her own strength rather than an acceptance of spiritual heart tug acted on in full reliance on God to provide the patience, strength, and cheerfulness required, it was still the wrong decision.

1. If she wasn’t the person called to this task, she is keeping the person who was called from taking it on.
2. If this is not the task she was called for, she is either leaving the task she is called to undone or doing more than she can handle.
3. If she is acting for God in her own strength, she will eventually burn out.

God calls us to his side to walk with him. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” Ephesians 2:10 (ESV). Yes, we are to do good works, but we walk in the works that God already prepared for us, and we do it in his strength.

I think we tend to believe that God needs us, whether to defend him against unbelievers or to do the things he needs done. He doesn’t need us. He loves us. He wants us. He gives us valuable work to do with him. But he never, ever needs for a human to do something for him. That is why “the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord,
but the prayer of the upright is acceptable to him,” Proverbs 15:8 (ESV). The purpose of the sacrifice was always for the good of the one making it; God never needed it.

So next time you want to do something for God, whether big or small, take a step back and make sure than you aren’t doing it for God, but that you are instead walking with him.