Are You Trying Harder, or Trusting More?

Today's post comes from my message last night in Fusion service at Celebration. If you weren't there, this is part of what you missed. 

Perhaps you keep trying over and over with certain things in your life and still, you cannot break through. It may be that you are trying to reach a goal or break an addiction, and you keep falling.

I understand.

What’s the difference between trying and trusting?

Let’s talk about these two different roads:

 Galatians 3:2

“Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ.”

Paul asked a question he already knew the answer to. He knows they received the Spirit when they believed. 

The law only points out what is right and wrong, but provides no solution. Faith, however, leads to salvation. 

Galatians 3:3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

What was their goal? Salvation. 


More Than Heaven & Hell 

Salvation is not just about a future. It’s about our lives being transformed here and now. It's about having a close relationship with one who loves us more than anyone ever has or will. 

Romans 2:4 says it’s His kindness that leads us to repentance. God’s desire is a close relationship because we are wooed by His love, not simply that we fear what will happen.

I had a close relationship with the Lord from the time I was young, however it took time for me to understand the concept of serving Him in love. For some time, I simply feared being left behind if I didn't measure up. Then I realized how passionately Jesus loves me, and it changed my life and my thoughts in this regard.

There are two paths we can take: trying by Human effort or trusting in the power of the Spirit. 

The job is too great to be done by me--that’s why Christ died to pay the price for my sin. If I could do it on my own, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to die. 

Photo Credit: MarkBaird, Flickr

 

Are you a rowboat or a sailboat?

A rowboat is dependent upon human effort. You have to keep rowing to keep it going. A sailboat is moved by the wind. The power of the wind moves the boat. It is still entirely necessary for the boat to move, but the power source of the sailboat is the wind.

We try to do so much WITHOUT GOD!
This is why we keep falling.

Preaching often focuses on, “You need to do this and you need to do that.” Many times sermons are simply a list of shoulds and shouldn’ts. It seems to be all about what we can attain with our human effort if we just try harder.

Everything from, “You need to stop wearing low cut blouses,” to “You need to stop sleeping around,” to “You should pray more.”

During these kind of messages, I think, “Why don't we teach the people who God is, and let them understand the heart and the character of God, and fall totally head over heels…madly in love with Him?” 

When we are head over heels in love with Jesus, we don’t want to wear a low cut blouse.
We don't want to sleep around.
We want to pray...to be in constant communication with Him.

When a person knows God intimately and understands who He is and what He has done and can do and will do and wants to do…it rocks their world. They can’t help but change. Their desires and habits change, through the power of the Holy Spirit, not through shaming.

A sermon telling people how much they aren’t doing, how much more they need to do, tends to just leave one feeling like they will never measure up.

Guess what – in and of myself, I will never measure up.

THAT’S WHY JESUS DIED AND ROSE AGAIN.

Because I will never measure up.

It’s not about trying harder, it’s about surrendering more!

Moral people make choices out of fear of rejection.

Christians make choices because we know we’re accepted. 

Does that mean obedience to the Word is unimportant or that God has no standards for his children? No. But, we must be clear in our understanding that it is not our obedience that makes us His children, but His grace, mercy and forgiveness.   

The more we get to know Him, the more we want to change and the more we do change.

Galatians 3:10-14

 “But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law. So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life. This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says, It is through obeying the law that a person has life. But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.”

The promise for those who are trying by their own strength to measure up to God’s requirements is a curse. 

Does that mean the Law is bad? No. 

 

The Law shows our need for God’s grace. 

But the law required more than we could do, and incurs a curse if not rigidly followed forever. And the law itself has the ability to make us want to disobey.

Exactly what you’re told you can’t do is what you want to do.

Admit it.

If you go on a diet where you can’t have pasta, then pasta is what you want. 

The law itself makes us want to be disobedient, and this is a part of its curse.

The blessing of Salvation is that Jesus Christ bore the curse himself and paid the price to set us free from sin’s punishment and bondage.

Today you may be struggling with many things. 

Perhaps you are angry with yourself for falling time and again. You feel condemned for what you are doing or not doing, or perhaps even what you are addicted to.  You keep falling and getting up and trying harder and harder, and still it’s not working.

Get to know God. 
Really know Him.

Knowing Him for who He is and coming close to Him will give you a drive to not want to do those things any more, and furthermore the power to change.