“Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored. But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about.” Romans 8:7-9 Message
Paul reminds us that Christ has come to live in and through us as Christians. This really benefits us when we learn to tap into His life and let Him become our strength.
The trouble is we are trained from youth to believe that self-effort is the only answer, but it’s not God’s way. If self-effort was the key to a successful Christian walk, then we wouldn’t need the Lord anymore and His death on the cross would have been in vain.
Any attempt to earn or deserve His acceptance, disqualifies us, for then you are trying to be the source of your own salvation. When you try to be the source of your salvation, significance and strength, it’s not pleasing to God.
What is the answer then? The answer is to learn to let Christ live through you, and when we do we enter into His rest.
Hebrews 4:10 (KJV) “For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.”
Entering into His rest doesn’t mean that we become ‘Couch Potatoes.’ He wants us to believe that Christ has taken up residence in our lives and then learn to let everything flow out of that. Most Christians never really come to this point and have lives that are a mixture with works than rest. God wants us to flow in the power of the Christ Life within guided by the Holy Spirit.
When we look at the book of Acts, you’d think that it’s all about wall to wall miracles, but in reality there were many years when nothing much happened for the Apostles. Paul often found himself in jail and had a forced rest, but it was there that he was inspired to write scripture.
We may not be put in jail, but as soon as we get any free time we just fill it up with everything else but spending time with God. This is hard for ‘Seekers’ as it seems like nothing is happening in their lives.
We can be like King Saul who was told to do nothing until Samuel came back to offer the sacrifice, but he got tired of waiting and offered it himself. Because of this Samuel said to him that he’d lost the kingdom. Samuel’s words were. “Obedience is better than sacrifice.” We too can be like Saul and go beyond our mandate, but God says its better to be obedient than sacrifice, even if it means doing nothing. We too can miss all God has for us by being impatient.
The only striving we are allowed to do is, is strive to enter into His rest (Hebrews 4:1) and once there maintain it. “Keep ourselves in the love of God.”(Jude 1:21)
Its not as easy to rest in God for the enemy is always trying to make us get back into works. He is constantly whispering in our ear, accusing us of not doing enough.
A good illustration of what I’m trying to say is the way in which Police Dogs are trained. These dogs are longing to go through their paces and be rewarded with some food, but the trainer makes them sit there for ages (even with the food in front of them) and only to move when He says, and not before. If they do they are disqualified.
We too are being trained by the Spirit and will not be ready until we can hear and obey the Lord’s voice even when the Devil is accusing us. We need to discern between his shouts and the Lord’s still small voice, and when we do we enter into a place of rest.
I believe many Christians do more in their own strength than the Lord wants them too and this will eventually drain us. Jesus is the good Shepherd and He always leads His sheep, but the Devil wants to drive us. A good Shepherd goes before His sheep and leads them into blessing. Here in New Zealand we use sheep dogs to round up sheep. They bark and chase the sheep to where the shepherd wants them to go but Jesus our good Shepard is not like this.
Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”