Are You Trying or Trusting?

What if you didn’t “try” to do anything to please God in any way…but instead chose to TRUST Him moment by moment (casting each care on Him, expecting His goodness), REST in Him (inwardly be at peace) and actually ENJOY a real relationship with Him?

Right now, if you are feeling completely burned-out as a Christian, consider yourself blessed; He’s calling you to the high life of real freedom. If you are at the end of your rope, get happy; He’s calling you into a life of real rest.

Because at the end of all that struggling and striving – trying to be pleasing or accepting to God – by doing this and that (religious busyness), you will find yourself face to face with Him. At the end of your self efforts to keep yourself from doing what you think you shouldn’t, only to feel guilty when you can’t, you’ll finally get hit with the power of His grace.

“…when I was at the end of my rope, He saved me.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭116:6 MSG‬‬

It’s not about us and what we can do. It’s about Jesus and what He’s done. You see, everything that the law of God required of you was fulfilled in the person of His Son. And all that you could never measure up to was condemned in His body on the cross.

Jesus, the ONLY perfect one, gifted you His very perfection (His righteousness) when He was raised from the dead. And all that stuff you see in yourself that makes you feel not good enough and weighs you down with guilt, Jesus did away with by absorbing ALL of it into Himself and obliterating it on the cross.

Many of you already know my kids eat and sleep baseball because it’s my husband’s career. Now in his tenth season as a coach in the Kansas City Royals organization, we are well acquainted with the club’s motto for its kids fan base: “Raised Royal.” It may just seem like a clever phrase for most, but therein lies divine truth.

You have been “Raised Royal” and righteous in Christ! That means Jesus alone put you right with God; not your actions, good deeds or behavior. Now His favor is on your side. But you can’t earn it. None of us deserve it. It was His reckless Love Who paid for us to have it. You only have to believe it and receive it.

The reason many aren’t experiencing the extravagant free-flowing blessings of Papa God in their life is because they either feel unworthy based on their actions or entitled based on their actions. And that belief comes from an old covenant mindset.

But we are no longer under law. We are under grace. There is a new covenant in town; His name is Jesus. And He ran that old (do-it-yourself) condemning covenant out of town and made it obsolete (see Hebrews 8:13).

“They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God…” ‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭3:16-18‬ ‭MSG‬‬

Child of God, you only need His presence. And He only wants yours. Sometimes you may need to turn away from distractions, turn off social media, say ‘no’ to obligations, slow down or find some quiet time, etc. to be AWARE of His presence. But when you realize God’s not asking you to conquer life at breakneck speed (to keep up with the the world, the neighbors or the church) or to save the world in your own strength, you’ll encounter His very life. He invites you to rest.

He wants you to take your place in Him and sit down; cop a squat. I don’t mean physically (although there are definitely ordained times for physical rest as well), I mean inwardly relax and live as though His work really is finished. And that means all you need is already a “done deal” when you trust in Him.

What does this look like in your day-to-day life? It means you can start each day by believing you are unconditionally loved and go from there. No internal checklists, no people pleasing, no straining your moral muscles in an effort to impress God or others. Just be. Communicate with Him. Hand your life over to Him and let go. He can handle the rest.

I’m a homeschool mom. I love it! But in the early years of this journey, I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough. I was trying to keep up with this delusional idea that my boys needed to accomplish this or that by a certain time or age. Until one day, frustrated and cooked, I sat still with my journal open. And I heard the Lord speak these words to me, “You are not homeschooling for Me. I AM homeschooling through you. When did you stop having fun with them?” That was the game changer. Now, I put my boys’ entire life of learning in God’s hands and go with the flow. There are a lot of days when we don’t do anything that seems “academic” at all. But we are present with each other, we have fun together, we do life together. And the result is supernatural.

Remember, He’s after a real relationship with you; intimacy (not employment). And that’ll never happen as long as you are too busy trying to be His robot. Rules and rituals are cold, distant and demanding. But relationship (Jesus) is warm, affectionate and inviting. Any demands you think God is making on your life, Jesus has already met.

Now you can breathe easy knowing the Christian life is actually impossible to live and that you were never expected to try and live it in the first place. When you find your peace in Him, He lives it through you.

“The life you see me living is not ‘mine,’ but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭2:21‬ ‭MSG‬‬

So let go of that performance-based pressured life so you can actually grow in knowing and experiencing God. He’ll blow your mind and rapture your heart.

Resting In His Love,

Annalee Reyes