Worried that you are not doing enough? Understand that "God did not send His Son to the world to point accusing fingers or tell the world what is wrong with it, but that the world through Him might be saved.

Believers, are you worried that you are not giving enough or doing enough in your work, home, church or community? Do you worry that you are doing and giving so much yet your prayers don't seem to make it anywhere? Let not your heart be troubled! The Good Shepherd (our Lord Jesus) knows the best method and best time for sheep shearing, not the sheep. Sheep are helpless without their shepherd. Remember John 15:5 where our Saviour is saying to us- 

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." 

We are the sheep. He is our Shepherd. We don't know our left from our right; He does. We don't even know what we ought to pray for (Romans 8:26). Christ leads us on the path of righteousness because we don't know this path. This is why Isaiah describes the good things we do to get right with God (our righteousnesses) as filthy rags--

"We are all like one who is unclean, all our so-called righteous acts are like a menstrual rag in Your sight."

Not our sins, but the good things we do that we feel should make God bless or accept us. Only in Christ are we righteous in His sight--

"And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God." Romans 5:9.

Satan is an expert at trying to make us feel less than who and what God has made us to be in Christ as it is written in Romans 5:9 above. E.g. if you pray to/commune with our heavenly Father for 30 minutes, he will point you to someone who prayed for 4 hours to make you feel less than godly. Let's even take our blessed brains to church concerning this thing called PRAYER which is essentially spending time communing with our heavenly Father in Christ: which one among us carries a stopwatch to monitor the time that we spend with our parents or our children? Our time spent talking with them is based on our relationship with them. If it is one of unconditional love from parent to child and the child knows and believes this love, we always want to be in their company!

If you read one chapter of the Bible daily, Satan will point you to another person who reads five and even writes her own daily devotional for others to read. Always, he will try to make you and I whom God has made perfectly righteous in His sight through the blood of Jesus feel condemned by any means possible. But beloved, our heavenly Father knows that of ourselves, we cannot even lift a finger much less spend time in the Word. Christ is our Righteousness and Strength. All those things (fiery darts of accusation) that Satan might try to get us to accept so that condemnation can follow, God sent His own Son to save us from them all, not to huff and puff and point accusing fingers at us for our failings while telling us to go and figure how to go and straighten ourselves out. See this in John 3:17-

"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."

See the MSG version: "God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending His Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again."

Only in the Beloved are we accepted/highly favoured. Beloved of God, beware of “men of God” who claim to be for Christ but respond to this truth of Grace with-- 

"So God will come down from heaven to bathe your kids and type that article for you? You still have to try to at least be good (be like God!) and obedient so that xyz."

Beloved, of course Christ came down from heaven! He lives in we who believe. We no longer live. We know that every good thing that we have and do is by His Grace - undeserved, unearned, unmerited favour - alone. 

Having that mindset of "at least a person must try to ..." is called "walking according to the flesh/human effort." Such who do so are still alive in themselves and so cannot say that "It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me." This is why they can boast or take credit for the works that they do aka--

"God blessed me because I fasted for 70 days and sowed my car so that He can give me good health, protection, a good job, freedom from demonic oppression, a child and housing."

What a sad day it would be for me should my own child believe that I will not freely give him the best of everything I can (food, clothing, shelter, love) unless he trades me for it with fasts, seeds and plenty begging as if I am reluctant to give him breakfast or pay his school fees. Our children do nothing to deserve being the beneficiaries of the love and care that we shower on them. We give them our all because they are born to us. In fact, their good behavior is a direct result of our training. How much more we who are born-again in Christ Jesus? How much more will our Father in heaven and the Perfect Trainer who trains His children us in the way that we should go give good things to those who ask Him? Psalm 103:13 says of Him--

"The same way a loving father feels toward his children— that’s but a sample of Your tender feelings toward us, your beloved children, who live in awe of You."

A SAMPLE, beloved. What we do for our children and our love for them do not even come close to our ABBA Father’s heart of love and compassion for us. We who are under Grace have not even begun to scratch the surface of the riches of His Grace (unmerited  favour) towards us. Yet somebody dares to man a church pulpit to announce 70 days fast and all sorts of human effort/arm of flesh-driven activities to get our own heavenly Father in Christ to heal us of all our diseases and to satisfy our mouth with good things? Beloved, see the five-fold benefits of our Lord God in the same Psalm 103 where He is telling us that the love we have for our children is but a SAMPLE of His tender feelings towards us:

"2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And forget not all His benefits:

3 Who forgives all your iniquities,

Who heals all your diseases,

4 Who redeems your life from destruction,

Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,

5 Who satisfies your mouth with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s."

And beloved, the Lord does NOT demand 70 days fasts or useless seeds before He blesses us with ALL of His benefits in Christ. Those "trade-by-barter" activities are for people who are not Christians and they still amount to nothing but "a menstrual rag" in God's sight according to Isaiah. For we who believe Jesus, God’s word is telling us that the Lord gives us ALL of His BENEFITS in Psalm 103 FREELY--

"He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" Romans 8:32.

FREELY. Beloved, stop striving (to be good/godly aka be like God as Satan deceived Eve into doing) and start believing that God is a good God. The sin of unbelief in the goodness/Grace of God is what made the Israelites wander in the desert for 40 years! Beware of those whose response to the goodness of God (GRACE) with statements such as--

"So God will come down from heaven to bathe your kids and type that article and proclaim Jesus for you? You still have to try to at least be good (be like God!) and obedient so that xyz."

Even worse, things like-- "So you are saying that because we are under Grace and the righteousnes of God covers us, we can just be sinning anyhow and God will not mind?"

These ones only expose their belief in Satan's doctrine of trusting in the arm of flesh/human effort for the attainment of godliness (be like God) as Adam and Eve tried to do, and their lack of understanding of God's Grace who is Saviour from sins. Beloved of God, God's Grace is a Person. His name is Jesus Christ. Titus 2:11 says of Him:

"God’s marvelous grace has manifested in person, bringing salvation for everyone."

Verse 14 of the same Titus 2 says: "He gave His life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us His very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds."

How can man (who can do nothing of himself)  continue to live in sin and be lacking in good deeds when he has Christ (God's Grace) who came to free us from every kind of sin, no matter how vile, as his Saviour? Only antichrists preach that Grace (Christ Himself!) will cause people to sin. Such do not believe Christ who says "There is none good but God." Rather, such challenge God by thinking that they are or can produce even an atom of good by themselves. attribute the good in their lives which are products of God's restraining hand of mercy in saving them from the worst of man's evil tendencies to their arm of flesh/human effort. Beloved, let's not be found here; the result is failure- like Peter who thought he was good until he experienced a glimpse of life outside the mighty hand of God that keeps man from committing the most heinous sins; like Job who thought his sacrifices, obedience and good works should make him deserving of God's protection and prosperity,  him until the Lord answered him and he "abhorred himself."

Beloved, a sheep that tries to shear itself will end up getting hurt. A sheep that takes shearing lessons from another sheep or allows itself to get shorn by another sheep will get hurt. This is why people can get into trouble for doing good things that everyone agrees is "the right thing to do." The good or bad things we do don't determine our right standing with God. Believing in Jesus Christ and receiving God's abundance of grace and His gift of righteousness is what does. God's word says clearly in Galatians 5:4 - 

"For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace."

Only with our Lord Jesus Christ's gift of no condemnation do we go and sin no more and get to live in triumph over sin and death. Being in Christ (utterly depending/trusting in Him as our Righteousness and Strength and putting no confidence in the flesh/human might) without living a godly life, overcoming sins and producing good works is more impossible than jumping into the sea naked without getting wet:

Godliness/godly living is the "wet."

All the fruits of the Spirit are the "wet."

Spending time in the word daily and loving it is the "wet."

Having communion with our heavenly Father in Christ is the "wet."

God's protection and prosperity is the "wet."

Having wisdom and discernment to make the right decisions in our health, family, career, relationships, finances and every other facet of life is the "wet."

Good works are the EVIDENCES of salvation in Christ. They are not CONDITIONS. This is why you will never find a true believer boasting about how he fasted for 70 days and got a God's protection/health and house in return. That is akin to a child boasting to his friends that he fasted for 70 days and sowed a mighty seed for his own dad to house him, make him well when he is sick, pay his school fees or protect him from danger. His friends will think that both of them are sick in the head! 

Beloved, don't let any "pastor" misrepresent our loving heavenly Father to you. He gave His own Son to die for you and I. What more will He not freely do for us, even save us from our sins and transform us to godliness and doers of good deeds which is Christ's job description?

In Christ, the thoughts of the Holy Spirit become our action, and we GET TO bear much fruit. You will find yourself doing more, giving more, evangelising/proclaiming Jesus more, loving more and living right, yet not you but Christ in you,

"...for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure."-Philippians 2:13.

Like many churchgoers who think that they can fast, sow or obey their way into earning a portion of God's goodness (protection, provision, prosperity, peace,) the younger son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son returned home with the mindset that he could earn his keep in the Father's house, but God's word in Deuteronomy 21 shows us what he really deserved-

"18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid."

Like the lost son, all have sinned and gone astray. Death (preceded by earthly ills) is the fate of all who have sinned and think that they can come to God to earn their keep with their works in the Father's house. Man simply cannot, beloved. Only by Grace (unmerited favour) through faith (belief in God's goodness) are we saved. 

Also beware of "older brother" types who get angry when our heavenly Father showers those who return to Him with Grace - undeserved, unearned, unmerited favour - as He did the prodigal son upon his return. The "older brother" message aka trying to earn God's love, protection, provision and salvation when all that He has is already ours is what is being passed off as Christianity in many places of worship today. Beware of such.

So ask the Lord to open your eyes to see His Grace, beloved of God. Like the Father in The Parable of the Prodigal Son, our heavenly Father in Christ is waiting to love you into wholeness in His loving embrace. 

Believe Right and you will Live Right!