Do Less So You Can Do More
by Rick Warren — May 27, 2024
From Shaped to Make a Difference
“It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don’t you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?”
Psalm 127:2 (MSG)
The Bible says in Mark 12:30, “You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength” (NLT). Another way to say it is this: Love God with all your talk, all your feelings, all your thinking, and all your acting. God shaped you to primarily be a talker, feeler, thinker, or doer.
“Doers” love God with their strength. They are the energetic activists of life—the achievers, the accomplishers, the workers, and the people who push things forward and make things happen in the practical sense of life.
What is the purpose of “doers” in the world?
The world needs contribution. We don’t just need communication, compassion, and consideration. We’ve got to get to work and do it! We need people with initiative, energy, action, and a bias for achievement.
But we all have flaws, and for doers, it’s overwork. Doers are always working. They never stop to think, and they certainly don’t stop to feel. They are always busy!
God says in Psalm 127:2, “It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don’t you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves?” (MSG). If you are a doer, that would be a good verse to put up on the mirror in your bathroom. God wants his loved ones to get their proper rest.
Some of you need to do less. Not less for God, but less in other areas so you’ll have more time to do what matters most.
The Bible says that when you become a believer, God makes you a new person inside: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV).
When you become a believer, your past is forgiven, you have a reason for living, and you have a home in heaven. Let me tell you something that doesn’t change when you come to Christ: Your personality doesn’t change. God doesn’t slow you down when you come to him. He just changes your direction. In fact, he wants to empower you. Remember, you got your personality from him.
God doesn’t want to make you a clone of everybody else in the way that you worship and serve and love him. He wants you to serve him with your personality. Not only that, but he will strengthen your personality, not dampen it. He’s going to make you more you than you’ve ever been before.
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