How to win life’s battles (3)

Learn to relax in faith. Notice how God responded to Jehoshaphat’s prayer: ‘The battle is not yours, but God’s’ (2 Chronicles 20:15 NIV). Many of us wear ourselves out trying to fight God’s battles in our own strength. In the initial flush of becoming Christians, we’re eager to win the world to Jesus and want to go out and single-handedly bring about His kingdom. That’s because we don’t realise what’s involved. Then after we’ve worked hard under our own steam, reality sets in. We end up crawling back on our hands and knees, disappointed, because we think we’ve let God down. But He reassures us, ‘You didn’t let Me down, because you weren’t holding Me up.’ The truth is, we don’t hold God up – He holds us up! We don’t have Him in our hands, He has us in His hands! And He’s telling us to relax in faith and let Him do the work through us. Paul wrote, ‘As you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him’ (Colossians 2:6 NIV). In other words, remember how you first became a believer – by simple faith in the finished work of Christ – and continue to live by simple faith. You didn’t become a Christian by striving for perfection and doing good works. Good works have nothing to do with it! Salvation is a free gift. God doesn’t need us to micromanage things; He has everything under control, and He wants us to relax and let Him live through us. Bottom line: victory in life is a gift from God! ‘Thank God, who always leads us in victory because of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 2:14 GWT).

Prayer Point

Dear God, I get so anxious about trying to do everything myself and I feel weighed down by the pressure I put on myself to do it all perfectly. Instead, You’re telling me to relax and simply do what You ask of me. I don’t need to do everything and be everything. Help me to pick my battles, to follow Your guidance in handling them, and to leave all the rest to You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Warren, Rick, God’s Answers to Life’s Difficult Questions (Grand Rapids, MI; Zondervan, 2006), 113-115.