Performance-based Christianity

I was at this small group meeting last night of a sort of random group of people. Amy and I enjoy it and thought that last night was the best discussion that we have had. We were talking about Jesus and his first role is salvation. As we discussed what this looks like I asked the group (Amy and I are the youngest so there is a lot of wisdom) how! How do you live this life in Christ? The life in Christ that Jesus talks about where we are one like Jesus and the Father are one and we are intertwined...John 13 - 15? There was some good discussion and I got a few things out of it. Someone said that spending time reading the bible and praying is not necessarily for God, He doesn't need it, I need it. I need to give it some more thought, but it is true that I need that to help me with this walk. Although the bible does say that God inhabits the praise of His people. I was grateful to NOT get the usual stuff that is said about when you don't have that daily time with God your day goes bad (performance based love and grace from God on your day), but your day may seem better because your attitude is better by starting the day off in reading the bible and praying.

The other significant conclusion that I came to has really helped me. Our society is very performance based. If you do good work you get promoted, if you do well in school you get college paid for, if you are good in sports you get a scholarship and the list goes on. I am not saying that is bad, but it is the reality of where we live. As such whether I applied this same performance based attitude and applied it to my faith or whether churches in the West have helped create this doesn't matter. What does matter is that where I am in my faith right now is on a journey out of performance-based faith. Performance-based anything is so conditional. God is not going to love me any more or any less based on what I do. This doesn't give me license to go sin (just ask Paul) rather it helps me know that God loves me period! I can't earn more of His love than you and God isn't going to withhold His love for me. This kind of love draws me into Him more and more, I want to read, I want to pray I want to get close. It is a challenge to break this performance based thought pattern. I will also say this is pretty fresh material for me so I have some more processing and don't mind some help so I you want to talk about it or make a comment I would love to hear from you.
K