Spirit: Path To Praise - The Overflow Devoনমুনা

It's Already Done (Big Daddy Weave)

For the beat up and broken
The ones who stopped hoping
It's already done it's already done
For the sick and the needy
The weak and defeated
Stop trying so hard and believe

“Stop trying so hard and believe!” That doesn’t sound like the words that are preached to the people of God from most pulpits these days. Many of us leave the church building on Sundays around lunch feeling as if we have a long list of things we must try harder on this week. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the motivation to try harder is right. Unfortunately, it often is not.

The lie of religious performance and legalism is that God’s opinion of us is contingent on how hard we try, how hard we work, how much we achieve for God. Harmful and false “Christian Karma” lies and says, “Today, you just have to make sure that your good outweighs your bad and that you aren’t as bad as the next guy." The Bible teaches something very different about God’s opinion of us and what it is contingent upon.

The reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that no one could ever work hard enough to earn God’s love or erase the stain of sin. The chasm between sinners like us and a sinless Holy God is uncrossable. This is why Jesus came. Jesus came and didn’t just try harder than us, He succeeded! Jesus lived the perfect life we never could have lived. This is what is required to be in loving relationship with God. Jesus gives us His perfect life when we believe in Him as if we had lived it ourselves.

Jesus succeeded in obeying the Father’s will all the way to the cross. On the cross, Jesus took the punishment we deserved for our sins, so that we could receive the eternal love of God. Faith in the finished work of Jesus transforms us from hell-bound haters of God into beloved children, even when we sin.

The truth of the gospel of Jesus is the power that sets us free to “stop trying so hard to believe.” The crowd that followed Jesus in John 6 proposed a question to Jesus about trying hard for God.

Jesus tells us that believing in Him is all that what we must do to, because believing that Jesus has already succeeded, sets Christ followers free. Free to obey God, not to earn His love, but because Jesus has already earned it. Because of Jesus, as Christ followers, we operate under the impossible to mess up love and approval of God (even when we sin). So we don’t have to try anything to get God’s attention or approval today. We have it already in Christ and there’s nothing we can do to change the way God feels about us. This is God’s love and this is the proper motivation to live the lives He’s calling us to live today!

Invite the Holy Spirit to help you believe that God’s love is already at maximum capacity for you this morning because of Jesus! Invite Him to reveal God’s will for you today and to empower you to walk it out. And when you fail, remember His love and get back up again. This is true freedom in Christ!