God wants you! And He wants you to want Him. He desires the kind of relationship rooted in our need to be with Him. Can we survive spiritually in a halfhearted relationship with God? Sure we can. But merely going through the motions doesn’t carry a whole lot of weight with Him. Nobody likes indifference! What we do for God is important, certainly. But if our efforts are not coupled with intimacy, they have little value.
How can we alter our tendency toward doing stuff, as opposed to being what God wants? First recognize it as a problem. Ask God to change the motivation of your heart. He’ll answer that prayer! Then practice it! Few things succeed in life without a lot of practice. Granted, employing this discipline doesn’t come easily. What’s encouraging, though, is that reaching toward greater intimacy with God just naturally increases our appetite for it.
From Free from the Power of Sin: the Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself