Can Serving God Replace Knowing God?

There are seasons when the Christian life can become very busy.

There are Bible studies to prepare for, people to encourage, prayers to remember, needs at church, opportunities to serve, habits we are trying to strengthen, sins we are trying to overcome, and responsibilities we genuinely want to carry well. We can be trying very hard to follow Jesus and still find ourselves exhausted by the effort of being a “good Christian.”

I have felt that struggle myself at times.

I can become so focused on obedience, growth, service, and doing the things God has called me to do that I quietly begin neglecting something even more fundamental: actually enjoying and developing my relationship with God.

None of those other things are bad. In fact, they are good. Scripture calls us to obedience. Jesus calls us to serve. Spiritual discipline matters. Mission matters. Holiness matters.

However, Christianity was never meant to become a collection of good things we do for a God we rarely slow down enough to draw near to.

When Jesus was asked which commandment mattered most, He did not begin with service, evangelism, Bible knowledge, or even obedience itself. He said:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30, ESV)

At the center of the Christian life is a relationship of love.

Even in a life filled with good Christian activity, there are times when we may need to find our way back to that center.

We Can Do a Lot for God and Still Drift From Him

The church in Ephesus in Revelation 2 is one of the most sobering examples of this.

Jesus commends them for an impressive list of things. They were working hard. They had endured difficulty. They rejected false teaching. They had not grown weary in their service.

From the outside, this looked like a healthy, committed church.

Then Jesus says:

"But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4, ESV)

This reality lingers in my mind often.

Evidently, it is possible to keep doing many of the right things while something quietly changes in our relationship with God.

We can read Scripture and begin treating it primarily as information to master. We can pray and slowly turn prayer into a list of requests or something to check off our list. We can serve until ministry becomes another responsibility to manage. We can become very concerned about resisting sin while spending surprisingly little time enjoying the goodness of the God we are trying to obey.

Eventually, Christianity can start to feel more like maintaining a standard than walking with Someone we love.

The problem is not obedience.

The problem is when our obedience becomes detached from affection.

God does not merely want outward compliance from us. He wants our obedience, certainly, but He wants more than behavior. He wants our hearts.

We Are Servants, But We Are Also Children

One of the truths I think we can move past too quickly is what the gospel actually gives us.

Through Christ, we are not merely forgiven workers who have now been given assignments. We are brought into the family of God.

Paul describes this beautifully in Romans 8. We have received:

"The Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Romans 8:15, ESV)

That changes the way we understand our relationship with God.

He is certainly our King. He is our Creator and Lord, and His authority over us is absolute. But through Christ, He has also welcomed us as Father.

A healthy child does not relate to a loving father only by asking, “What am I supposed to do next?”

There is conversation. Trust. Dependence. Affection. Joy. Time together. There is the security of knowing we belong.

I think I sometimes need to remember that when I pray.

I do not always need to arrive before God with an agenda. I do not need every moment in Scripture to produce a new insight I can use. I do not need every prayer to accomplish something measurable.

Sometimes I simply need to be with my Father.

To tell Him what is on my heart. To thank Him for who He is. To sit with a passage long enough to know Him better instead of immediately rushing toward application or thinking about how I might use it to help someone else. To notice His goodness. To bring Him my fears without immediately trying to solve them. To remember that I am loved before I attempt to accomplish anything that day.

That kind of relationship is not separate from discipleship.

It is where discipleship truly begins.

The Martha in Us Is Usually Doing Something Good

Luke 10 gives us another picture that feels uncomfortably familiar.

Martha welcomes Jesus into her home and begins serving. Her sister Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to Him.

Martha is not doing something sinful. She is serving Jesus.

That is what makes the story so challenging.

Luke tells us that Martha had become:

“Distracted with much serving” (Luke 10:40, ESV)

Eventually, her good service had pulled her attention away from the very Person she was trying to serve.

I think that can happen to us too. I know I have fallen into this trap at times.

We can become distracted with much serving.

Distracted with ministry. Distracted with spiritual improvement. Distracted with responsibilities. Distracted with trying to be the husband, wife, parent, leader, employee, church member, or disciple we know we should be.

Jesus gently tells Martha that she is “anxious and troubled about many things,” while Mary has chosen what is necessary.

The lesson is not that service does not matter. Jesus Himself came to serve.

The lesson is that service cannot replace presence.

Before we ask, “What can I do for Christ today?” maybe we also need to ask, “How can I be with Christ today?”

Those questions belong together.

Obedience Grows Best From Love

Jesus never separates love from obedience.

He says plainly:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15, ESV)

So developing a loving relationship with God does not mean replacing obedience with emotion. Biblical love is much deeper than simply feeling close to God.

But notice the direction of Jesus’ words. “If you love me…”

Obedience is meant to grow from love.

When we know the character of the One giving the command, trust becomes easier. When we understand His goodness, surrender begins to look a lot different. When we know how deeply we have been loved through Christ, obedience becomes less about proving ourselves and more about responding to grace.

We pray because we want communion with Him. We read Scripture because we want to hear from Him. We repent because sin interferes with the relationship we treasure. We serve because the love we have received begins flowing toward others. We obey because we trust the One we are obeying.

The Christian life begins to shift from “What must I do?” toward “How can my life respond to the God who has loved me this much?”

The actions may sometimes look exactly the same.

But the heart underneath them is very different.

Relationship Requires Attention

No meaningful relationship grows automatically.

We know this everywhere else in life. A marriage cannot thrive indefinitely on shared responsibilities alone. Friendship weakens when conversations disappear. Parents can provide everything their children need materially while becoming emotionally distant if meaningful connection is neglected.

Relationships need attention.

Our relationship with God is obviously different from our human relationships, but the principle still matters. We cannot expect intimacy with God while giving Him only the leftover edges of our attention.

That does not mean we need hours of uninterrupted contemplation every day. Most of us live full lives with real responsibilities.

But perhaps we need to recover some relational purpose in the practices we already have.

When we open Scripture, we can ask, “What does this show me about God?”

When we pray, we can spend time praising Him before moving immediately into requests.

During the workday, we can pause and remember that God is present rather than treating Him as Someone we meet only during devotional time.

When something beautiful happens, we can enjoy it with gratitude toward the One who gave it.

When something hurts, we can bring Him the honest emotion rather than giving Him only the cleaned-up version of ourselves.

Relationship is built through repeated attention.

Perhaps one of the great disciplines of the Christian life is simply learning to keep turning our hearts toward God.

So let me ask you…

As I ask myself these same questions:

• Has my relationship with God recently felt more like a responsibility than a relationship?

• Am I spending more energy doing things for God than actually knowing and enjoying Him?

• Have prayer and Scripture become primarily tasks to complete rather than ways of being with my Father?

• What good Christian activity might be crowding out deeper communion with Christ?

• When was the last time I simply thanked God for who He is without asking Him for anything?

• What would it look like to intentionally develop affection for God this week?

None of these questions are meant to make us feel guilty for not having enough spiritual emotion. Our sense of closeness to God will have seasons, and our feelings will rise and fall.

The invitation here is to simply turn toward Him again and again.

A Closing Word for Fellow Pilgrims

God has given us important work to do.

There are commands to obey, people to serve, sins to resist, disciples to make, burdens to carry, and good works prepared for us to walk in.

But underneath all of it is something even more fundamental.

We were created to know and love God.

Jesus did not die merely so we could become more productive servants. He reconciled us to God. He brought us near. Through Him, we have been welcomed into a relationship with the Father.

So let’s obey Him.

Let’s serve Him.

Let’s work faithfully, pursue holiness, love our neighbors, and carry out the mission He has given us.

But let’s never become so busy doing things for God that we forget the joy of simply knowing Him.

We are not merely servants completing an assignment.

In Christ, we are children learning to walk with our Father.

Everything else in the Christian life is meant to grow from there.

Until the journey is complete,

Jonathan Pilgrim

P.S. This week, let’s spend ten minutes a day with God without treating the time as something to accomplish. Read a short passage slowly, thank Him for who He is, tell Him honestly what is on your heart, and simply enjoy some time with your Father.