Performing For Love

The Lord spoke to me about how demons hide in mindsets. I was talking to a friend and she was telling me how she won't leave a certain denominational church because she believes she won't be able to sustain her walk of holiness outside of their controlling behavior and man made rules.  She believes she has to perform to their standards to be accepted by God. This mindset is works based. Yes, she is being a doer of the Word but her relationship with God is based on performance. God will love me only if I perform well. If I don't perform well he'll reject me. This is a demonic belief system. Paul asks the Galatians and asked, "Who has bewitched you?" Remember witchcraft has more to do with control than anything.  A performance based mindset causes us to believe that God's love is conditional upon performance and it drives us to perfectionism.  When we fail to meet His expectations then we experience feelings of failure, worthlessness, and rejection. For many people it causes so much discouragement and at times rebellion because they feel they can't meet up.  It's an ugly cycle of failed attempts because this mindset breeds pride in our own personal efforts to serve God. We fail to receive his grace for transformation because we are too busy trying to do do better than our last failed attempt. If only we would humble ourselves and admit we can't do this without help! Think of the humility of Jesus to ask someone to help Him with cross. Jesus was the strongest man that ever lived and still needed help! Sometimes grace comes in the form of someone helping you carry your cross. Other times it comes by admitting we need help but either way we need to understand that God loves us and it's not based on performance. It's based on His mercy. Today if you find yourself taking pride in your works or performance, feel stuck in another failed attempt or look down on others please ask God to forgive you and humble your heart so you can receive God's empowering grace to live for Him. Stay humble and you will always be able to sustain your walk with God. Jesus loves you. Jaziz Gutierrez