No more, no less

I was in children’s ministry for many years when I lived in Hawaii, and I enjoyed it greatly. 

But after a time, I started to burn out. 

In my second to last year of working with kids, I took a few weeks off from teaching Sunday school, and I came back refreshed. 

The next year, I was feeling burned out again, and this time a break didn’t help.

But I felt guilty about leaving.  I felt responsible for the kids I was teaching, and I was worried about who would take over. 

In the end, however, I had to leave.

I learned a valuable lesson at that time. 

When it comes to God’s will, we are to do no more and no less than what he tells us and calls us to do. 

My call for children’s ministry ended at that time, probably because God wanted me to start focusing on Japan (an idea I was resisting at the time). 

And yet I continued to do what God was no longer giving me the grace to do.  As a result, I burned out.

I was reminded of this as I read this passage in Deuteronomy.  God told the people,

Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you.  (Deuteronomy 4:2)

Moses here was specifically talking about the laws and ordinances that God gave the Israelites.  But I think the application holds true for us as Christians. 

Obviously, if we don’t do the things that God has told us to do, we are in disobedience.  I was in disobedience to God, for example, when I resisted his call to Japan.

But we also need to remember that we are not to do more than what God has asked or told us to do.  Because when we do, we heap a burden on ourselves that God never intended for us to carry. 

When God was calling me to do children’s ministry, it was never a heavy burden for me.  I enjoyed it. 

But when that call ended, and I continued to do children’s ministry, the burden became to heavy for me to carry anymore.

But this is true not only of ministry, but of anything that God has commanded us to do.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law, for example,  added many things to God’s law that God never commanded. 

In doing so, they heaped a heavy burden on the people they taught.  A burden that the people couldn’t carry, and were never intended to carry. 

Jesus told them in Luke 11:46

And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.

How about you? 

Do you subtract from God’s word in your life?  Do you disobey the commands he has given you? 

Then you’re living in sin, and you need to repent.  You need to start doing what God has asked you.

Do you add to God’s word in your life?  Are you doing more than he has asked you to do? 

Then eventually you’ll burn out in your Christian life because you’re carrying a burden God never intended you to carry.

Don’t subtract from God’s word and don’t add to it. 

Instead, do exactly what he has told you to do. By doing so, you’ll find the life and joy that God intends for you to have.