A Restful Theology...

God finished His work in creation and rested, telling us to recognize His finished work by resting with Him.

Jesus finished His work FOR creation - redeeming us from our striving in performance, and prescribed we rest as recognition of His finished work on the cross.

When we strive to be more, to have more, to do more, we are denying His sufficiency and rejecting His finished work on our behalf. But when we choose to trust His work in and through us we begin to enter His rest and experience His sufficiency, becoming available for His revelation of His finished work for others.

Today, serve Him by trusting His work in and through and for you. Strive to enter His rest. Depend on His sufficient grace not your ability to produce for Him or obligate a reaction from Him. Then the Life of Christ as your Source will overflow from you to fill those around you ready to receive from the Spring of Living Water instead of digging broken wells for themselves.

Enter into His rest by faith to the praise of His glorious grace.

Dealing with Denied Desires?

What is God NOT letting you do?

Recently, upon hearing a little about my current book-writing adventure, a friend asked how long I'd been thinking of writing a book.

"Oh, since about 5th grade," was my snarky reply.

It's been something God showed me early in my Christian life. I love words, love the power of using them artistically - it's a kind of mental architecture, putting phrases together to build an idea in someone else that previously only existed in yourself.

God's dream, God's equipping, God's leading.

...but I am convinced He's not going to let me do it.

See, God is not interested in my writing. He wants my heart. He's not interested in what I can do for Him, but in the intimacy built between us as I let Him "do" through me.

Moses had a God-given desire for Israel's freedom, but God didn't let him do it. Abraham had a God-given desire for Isaac's future, but God did not let him bring it about.

Instead, both these godly men - and countless others from David to Paul, Gideon to Peter, and you to me - God asks NOT do what He wants to do as we give up the very thing God calls us to so that He might work miraculously, graciously, and for His renown and not ours to bring about the desires of our heart.

Abraham had an altar placed between Isaac and his future. Moses had a desert between the Israelites and freedom (twice). And my book? Well, it remains to be seen if and when God will bring that about, and how He will ultimately do it.

Maybe the question for you today is, "What has God called you to, equipped you for, and seemingly deprived you of so that He would become the desire of your heart even as He begins to take what you put down and produce the fruit you no longer need to be responsible for, take credit for, or have ownership or identity in?

What might you be wanting FROM Him, instead of being satisfied solely in Him? How might He move if you and I weren't trying to move with His blessing and endorsement on our effort?

How might He be glorified in His dream, His equipping, and His Life in us if we were content in His grace?


ridiculously graced...
-mike.

http://StoneLife.org
210-646-GRACE (4722)