Of Cookies, Friendship, and Sanctification

I spent a number of hours this past week trying to recover Laura Deschamps' computer, which suffered a bad hard drive crash for a basically unknown reason. All of her data, music and such was sent to the bit bucket, as well as all of her installed programs and everything else she needs for her computer to be of any use. This occured the day before she was to move back to Houston, so I kept the computer in College Station and her mother and sister picked it up from me today, since they were in College Station anyway for Rachel's new student conference. Upon their arrival to get the computer, I discovered that Laura had made me peanut butter cookies as a thank you gift.

The cookies were excellent (I already knew Laura was a reasonably accomplished cook), but one thing I was thinking of as I was eating some of them earlier is that, as much as I appreciated and enjoyed them, I didn't help her out for the sake of getting cookies. I helped her out because she's my good friend and (for that reason) because I wanted to. It wasn't in order to get any kind of reward, but to make her happy.

Unlike some may teach, that's the way the Christian life ought to work. God does reward His children for obeying Him and seeking Him, but that is not the reason we do so. We don't want to be holy because God will reward us, we want to be holy because it will please Him. After all, He has redeemed us, freed us from sin and death, and given us eternal life with Him. Who wouldn't want to please a God who does that?

And yet, how often is it that (because we view God as transcendent and distant in many ways) we go through the Christian life not to please God, but because we feel that if we don't, we'll face the consequences (which isn't necessarily untrue, but beside the point)? How often do we view the Christian life as a drudgery and a joyless duty rather than a joy, something that we are free and released to live? I don't think duty is a bad motivation for doing right things, but it is when not mixed with any kind of joy or desire to truly please God. I want to be molded more and more into a person who's aim and goal is to please my Father in everything.

"To see the Law by Christ fulfilled, to hear His pardoning voice changes a slave into a child, and duty into choice." (Cowper)

Luke