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Everyone likes to win prizes.  It may be winning the drawing for a car because you were one who consented to wear your seatbelt, when driving, consistently for a year (my mother won a car back in the 60’s for doing that).  Or maybe you won a prize for entering the best pie at the fair.  We like to be the one who wins the prize and will do most anything to get it!

As Christians we sometimes get confused.  We put Christian disciplines in our lives to get a blessing or ‘the prize’.  That may work for a while.  But for living the abundant life God wants us to have we need to get established in our mind and heart one essential fact; He is the prize. 

When we get Jesus we get it all!  Every need will be supplied.  Unless we believe it and live our lives with Jesus as the prize, we will become weary and give up.  I have heard people say, “I just can’t do it anymore, I have tried.  It doesn’t work for me.”  

Are you feeling this way?  If so do a heart check.  Are you doing things for God so He will give you something…a blessing of finance, a spouse, a child.  God loves to give good gifts to His children so I have no doubt that if what you desire is His will, He will give it to you.

I firmly believe that we have got to come to the place where we make up our minds that we will serve God faithfully for the rest of our lives whether we get what we what or not.  There is freedom in this.  We are then free from the bondage of always waiting for the prize to come.  We can enjoy God for who He is. 

Jesus tells us in His Word that we are complete in Him.  This is a great comfort and removes fear. If everything we know and love is stripped from us, we still have The Prize.  Will there be pain?  Most certainly!  But He will keep us safe and sane.  No man can take us out of His Might Hand. 

I have looked at my own experiences and also at the experiences of others who are Christians.  The ones who make changes in their lifestyles strictly for other people are miserable and eventually go back to the way they were or worse.  Granted, it’s good to have people around to help give you the boost needed to make positive changes. But your motivation should be to do the will of God. 

I remember when I went away to Bible College I made some lifestyle changes because they were the rules.  But I was aware of those rules before I went. That was one of the main reasons I chose to attend that specific place of learning.  I felt I wasn’t strong enough to make the changes I desired to make while being around the same people I had always lived around.  I went, made those changes, and have never turned back to my old ways. A friend of mine, on the other hand, made some of the same changes I did but for a different reason.  A single minister came through. He told her he would like to date her but she would need to make some changes first.  She took him up on it.  She married him but unfortunately the changes didn’t last.