Enough Defeats More Every Time

Performance-based, dualistic Christianity with its mixture of law and grace almost always centers on one word: more.  


More prayer.  If you just prayed more, then God would give you what you ask.  


More giving.  If you just gave more, then God would bless your finances. 


More service.  If you just served more, then God would show you favor.  


More study.  If you just studied scripture more, then God would reveal to you that missing piece of the puzzle that evades your peace.  


More.  Always more.  


With the fulfillment of the old covenant, and the dawning of a new and better one, a cosmic shift occurred from work-to-earn to rest-to-receive.   But resting in His goodness and love terrifies our soul because doing so requires a complete surrender our control to Him.  Rather than trusting that He who began a good work in us will be the agent of completing it, we take it upon ourselves to pursue the outcome through the sweat of our brow.   And all the while, performance-based Christianity cheers us on, assuring us that the victory is just over they next horizon.   


Resting in God…


👉Is embracing that our victory is not in our future but in our past.


👉Is realizing that blessing flows from Him who is at work IN us, not the fleshly correction we try to do inflict upon ourselves.


👉Is having our eyes opened to the truth that all things that pertain to life and godliness are already ours, making it utterly impossible to obtain them through human effort.  


👉Is what we were created for. 


👉Is to be the normal Christian experience. 


As we begin a new week, let’s lay down all of your ‘mores’.  They are lies that have kept us locked into a false identity.   And in their place, let us bask in the peace and assurance found exclusively in the finished work of our Beloved.  There is no ‘more’.  There is nothing left to attain.  We are enough.  



Scriptures to Consider:


Philippians 2:13

For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.


Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed [an action we or others would produce] to this world, but be transformed [an action Christ performs in us] by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.


Philippians 1:4-6

In every prayer for all of you, I always pray with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.


2 Corinthians 12:9-10

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest on me. That is why, for the sake of Christ, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.


Titus 3:4-7

But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This is the Spirit He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we would become heirs with the hope of eternal life.



 

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