Episode #365 Are You Striving or Seated? – Real Peace, Secure Faith

Hey, friend. Today we're talking about how to stop striving spiritually.

A lot of us come to receive faith and then practice our faith through some form of striving. We try hard. We want God's transformation. But we can put too much of that emphasis on ourselves to do the work that only God can do in us. And I wanna talk about this today because oftentimes the striving that we can operate in comes from a form of insecurity. We feel like our relationship with God or the love he has for us, or the closeness that we want, is fragile. It can be easily lost in a moment.

But I wanna offer you the question today to consider and kind of walk around and inspect it curiously: What if it's not the case? What if your relationship with God is not fragile, is not in a tenuous place? No matter what circumstances you're walking through, or what sin you're dealing with today, no matter how hard life is or feels, what if you don't have to approach God from a position of striving, but in recognizing that in Christ, you're already seated?

I'm gonna read for us a passage from Ephesians chapter two. But I wanna consider before we get there a posture of being seated. Seated people don't scramble. When you sit, you're able to relax into the place that's holding you, the chair, the sofa. You're not perched on an edge of something. You're not striving forward in your own strength. When you're seated, you're positioned in a place of authority. You're positioned in a place of rest. And that's not a posture of weakness. That's a posture of strength, of comfort, potentially of ease.

Now, we don't get there because it's so easy. We get there because Jesus already paid the price. He already made the way for us to connect with God. Your relationship with God has already been established. Where we can be tempted to work for something, trying to achieve identity or acceptance or love or right relationship, what if that posture gets to change? What if instead, we're not operating FOR something but we're operating FROM something?

And so I encourage you to approach this conversation with God in light of the passage I'm gonna read for us from Ephesians 2:1-9. And as I do, I encourage you to listen for what God has already accomplished for you in Christ.

 “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Friend, you have already been seated in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus. You have already been made alive. And so the places where we strive to get somewhere closer to God don't have any merit because you have already been brought close to God. God has already accomplished this for you.

And so my invitation today is to take this question to God to see where we might struggle with this. It's different for all of us. He can meet us in that struggle, in that striving with his truth and offer us something better instead.

And here's our question:

God, are there any places where I'm striving because of insecurity and what do you offer me instead?

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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