Episode #361 Finding Security in God When You Feel Like You’re Failing – Real Peace, Secure Faith

Hey, friend. Do you ever feel like God's waiting to see your resume before you can draw near to him? What have you accomplished? How successful have you been as a Christian? Or maybe it doesn't so much feel like your resume, but your to-do list. What have you already accomplished for God, before we can draw near.

I find that a lot of us struggle to feel secure in our relationships with God. And sometimes that can connect back to insecure attachments we had with loved ones, with parental figures growing up. And I want to acknowledge that this is a big topic. There are so many facets and avenues to this. And so I haven't told you here, but I actually have an entirely separate YouTube channel where I'm teaching on how to live from relationship with God. Genuine authentic relationship. And so I'll put a link here in the show notes.

But today, here, we're talking about the security that we can experience in our walks with God because there's a way we can rest in him that feels unfamiliar to a lot of us. And I know that because I hear that from you. And also I've lived that same experience. So I want to start by reading Colossians 3:1-4. And this passage is connecting to the idea of putting on the new self, being made new in Christ. And so starting in verse 1, it says:

"If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory."

Your life is hidden away. It's not hanging by a thread.

When I think about the contrast of those visuals, more often, I've pictured myself as hanging by a thread with the Lord. But that's not how God treats us. His word tells us that our lives are hidden with Christ.

You're not one bad week away from being removed.

When the Father looks at you, he sees you as his beloved kid, who is wrapped in his beloved firstborn son, because you are wrapped in Jesus. You have been raised with Christ. And so you can seek the things that are above where he is on the throne, where all things come unto him as he would have them.

You don't have to worry about the things that are on this earth. Even as we walk out the instruction and the correction that God gives us. His participation with us to teach, to correct, to train us in righteousness, is not because we are insecure in him. It's not because we're dangling at the edge of being lost from him. But it's because we are raised with Christ, because we are hidden in him.

So where you might feel insecure, where it might feel like you're at risk of being rejected or abandoned, I urge you to take that into conversation with God. To ask him to tell you what is true instead. Because the truth that is written for us in this passage from Colossians 3 shows us that the security comes not from what we do, but from what Jesus has already done for us.

We're exhorted in these verses to live from the completed work that God already accomplished for us. “Since we have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on the things on earth.” Why? “Because you have died and your life is already hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

It's Jesus who has done and will do the things, and we are participating with him. Not by what we have achieved, but by what we get to receive. And so this exhortation in these few verses is telling us what to seek and what to set our minds on. And not so that we could achieve some kind of security by a good to-do list or an impressive resume. But so we can walk in accordance with the goodness that God has already provided for us in Jesus.

I hope this takes a load off your back today because the security you long for is already accomplished for you. We get to just learn how to align how we live with that truth. And we get to live from it, not live trying to earn it.

And so here's a question I invite you to take to God today and see what more he would want to share with you:

God, are there areas where I'm living as though I'm exposed instead of hidden and secure in Christ?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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