Abide > Strive

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV)

Here I go again.

Another day wasted with excessive striving.

A day spent not feeling enough or the best version of myself I tell myself that I should be.

It’s all a head game, really. So much is stacked in my energy level, how my clothes fit, whether my hair is frizzy from the East Texas humid air, whether my schedule is going as I had planned, and so on. I am a regenerated Christ believer and follower to the depths of who I am—but, yet I fail with my excessive striving to remain un-irritable, joy-filled, productive, patient, and gentle through my days.

Why.Is.This.So.Hard

It’s as if I see myself from a bird’s eye view. I see the madness that I can exude at times. I see it, but I can’t fully stop it—on my own.  

I yearn to rest in my Savior. I crave abiding in the life-renewing Holy Spirit that my Lord has gifted to me.

Though I yearn and crave these—my flesh is at war with these. My flesh rises and yearns for control and craves self-gratification.

The more I grow in my pursuit of holiness, the more I am at war. The depth of my depraved flesh becomes more visible, and I see how sick my heart truly is. The more this is revealed to my spirit, the more I rejoice in my salvation. I relish in the truth of just how much my merciful God saved me from. He saved me from myself. He saved me from the boundless wrath He will justly pour out one day.

He not only saved me, but He continues to save me. My God will not restrain His mercy from me. My God will never stop preserving me.

As a repentant believer in Jesus Christ as your Savior, do you ever think about your sealed status with Lord of Lord’s, the Holy of Holy’s?

David pens in Psalm 40:11, “As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!”

Because of Who God is—He will not hold back His mercy on His child. His love is enough and will always be enough to continuously draw the believer to repentance as He is preserving us to Himself for now and for eternity. Now, this preservation doesn’t mean believers aren’t sinners. But it means we aren’t slaves to sin, and our current sin doesn’t define our future eternal title of holy one.

Freedom.

This should evoke an out of this world freedom that is foreign to our flesh.

This freedom should help us surrender striving in our days. Though we fail, we don’t have to sit in this failure. We’ve been bought with the most expensive price—Christ’s blood. With this most costly blood, we have been washed clean of our, “controlled by sin,” status and given new names.

Chosen.

Holy.

Blameless.

Adopted.

Redeemed.

Heir.

Sealed.

Alive.

Saved.

Renewed.

Righteous.

Justified.

This is just to name a few. I encourage you to scour through scripture and add to the list. Immerse yourself with these biblical titles you now attain as a Christ-follower. When I do this, my mind shifts to eternal thoughts. My self-centered habits lessen. My eyes are set on my Lord with that deep yearning to rest in my Savior as I crave to abide in the Holy Spirit.

It’s all connected. Where we allow our thoughts to settle and what we allow are bodies, eyes, minds, ears, and hearts to entertain effects our yearning and abiding in the Lord. He doesn’t go anywhere; we drift from the benefits of our salvation status for the here and now. Let’s commit to lessen our drifts and submerge ourselves in all that the Lord has for us, now.

To do this, we must stay immersed in the gospel and read God’s Word, daily. This breathes life into our weary spirits and helps us to mortify striving in our weak power and embrace abiding in Christ. We can pray for a unique desire to do these daily tasks that will no doubt grow us closer to Christ. We can pray for a desire to walk in the wisdom of the Lord. We can pray to stay in step with the Holy Spirit and bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We can pray to find joy in obedience to Christ. We can pray to desire the boundaries the Lord has laid out in scripture. We can pray to flee from sin’s temptation. We can pray! We’re not alone on this beautiful journey of growing in holiness.

I want to leave you with the rich words of the apostle Paul written to the church at Ephesus:

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:1-10 ESV).

I Trust my God, I Trust my God, I Trust my God

Ardently His,

Jess D.