Are You Living With A False Belief?

What if you believed from a very young age that you were not good enough or you were a mistake or there was something wrong with you?

Those beliefs are hard to live with, very hard. You need to find a way to deal with believing that about yourself. So in response, you decide I need to work harder to be better. To be loved, accepted, to feel worthy, or even be secure. You continually try and please. Continually work harder and harder to make yourself good enough. You’re doing all this in your own strength, mustering up every strategy you can to make life bearable.
This becomes a pattern in your life. In relationships, in your jobs, at church, in just about every interaction, you’re working hard to be enough, to be acceptable. And, you’re doing it without even realizing you are. It’s a never-ending endeavor.

Fast forward, you receive Christ as your savior, Jesus transforms you with his resurrection life. You’re forgiven for your sins. The Holy Spirit indwells you. It’s an amazing feeling, an amazing transformation. He has made you a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 What do I DO now?

You make up your mind you are going to work hard to be the best Christian you can be. You want to be acceptable to God and live that way. You are going to tell everybody about this good news. You're going to volunteer for the best positions available at your local church. You hear a sermon on prayer and so you set aside 30 minutes every morning to pray. You vow not to miss that prayer time. You create a regiment of memorizing scripture. These are all good things, but deep down there is that feeling of being on the same hamster wheel trying to be good enough for God. Trying to gain acceptance by doing stuff. But this time it’s God’s acceptance. That seems even more impossible. I mean God has a pretty high standard.
The world has taught you all your life you need to perform to get ahead. You need to produce. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, whatever you set your mind to you can accomplish. It’s up to you. Create your own reality and on and on.

So where’s all this freedom in Christ I hear preached about? I ain't seeing it.

Well, I have good news for you. When you are in Christ you no longer need to do stuff to be acceptable. You are acceptable because Jesus is in you. You are righteous because Jesus is in you. You are loved because Jesus is in you. You are worthy because you guessed it, Jesus is in you. Jesus has taken out of the way the need for performance to gain anything from God.
He has set it up for us to approach this life in Christ from a resting position. Resting in the finished work of Jesus.  Hebrews 4:10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.

As a high priest, Jesus did the unthinkable after accomplishing what he did for us. He sat down. Why is that unthinkable? Because priests were never allowed to sit because their work of offering up sacrifices for the people of Israel was never done. Hebrews 1:3 tells us, And He (Jesus) is the radiance of His (the Father) glory and the exact representation of His nature and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Jesus rested. So can you.