The Grace of God Uzorak

Getting off the Performance Treadmill

A treadmill is an exercise machine that allows someone to run or walk in place on a belt that is continuously moving. Even though the person is accumulating steps, they stay in the same place—physically going nowhere. 

As followers of Jesus, we often do things that we think will make God happy or make Him love us more. We do something out of duty for Him rather than from our relationship with Him. We think that somehow our activity will get us closer to Him. When we’re on this path, we’ve unknowingly placed ourselves on a performance treadmill—doing all the things but staying in the same spot. Consider these contrasting statements:

• Instead of reading the Bible to earn God’s love, we read it to learn about God’s love. 
• Instead of attending church to check off a spiritual task, we go to church to worship God with other followers of Jesus.
• Instead of feeling good about ourselves because of what we do, we find our value in who God says we are.

At first, the performance treadmill feels easy. But over time, it gets harder to keep up. Then one day, we get off and give up, because we’re doing things for the wrong reasons. There will always be another activity that we think we should do to earn God’s love. And if we think God loves us based upon how well we perform, then we’ll always wonder when His love will stop based upon whether or not we accomplish our goal.

Getting off the performance treadmill is essential for us to live free in Christ. Our relationship with God must be the foundation of our faith, not our works. We could skip our prayer time and Bible reading every single day for a year, and God’s love for us wouldn’t diminish one bit. Of course, we wouldn’t feel close to God, but that’s just because we haven’t spent time with Him. That’s a lack of connection, not a lack of love. 

Salvation comes by grace through faith. It is finished forever. We don’t gain eternal life by our works. It’s grace that saves us and our good deeds are a by-product of the salvation we’ve received. 

As we finish up this Plan, let’s remember that grace continually renews itself. With each failure, we get to begin again as if we never messed up. God’s grace is never a license to sin, but instead an opportunity to become a distributor of the grace we’ve received. When we remember how much we need grace, it’s easier to give it. 

That’s what’s so amazing about God’s grace.