Grace Empowered Discipline
Learning to give focused effort in God's power
Two of the biggest challengesmost sincere Christians struggle with goes like this:
]1. “Let go and let God.”
“If it’s going to be it’s up to me.”
There are Scriptures that COULD support both of these views. But acting on just one of them will either produce spiritual laziness or exhaustion.
It really is a combination of both, as these Scriptures teach:
“I am the vine; you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
We can do nothing valuable from God’s perspective apart from abiding in Jesus. Only Jesus can produce the life and results of God through us.
But, if we don’t do our part to abide in Him and He in us, then we bear no real fruit.
It’s both drawing on God’s grace AND us doing our part to stay connected to Jesus.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” (Colossians 1:27c-29)
It is Christ, and only Christ in us that gives us the hope of glory.
Even though Jesus lives in every believer, we still need teaching and growth to become “complete in Christ” (a process).
Paul worked hard, he labored, he even said He was “striving”, but according to God’s power working mightily in him.
This is the biblical balance. Learning to live in God’s grace and power while also giving a great effort.
This takes time and practice.
We all go through phases of “I’ve tried in my own strength to do God’s will and failed, so I’m just going to let go and let God.”
This feels great when we’ve worn ourselves out trying to live godly and purposefully.
But, after a while, we realize we’re not making progress; we’re just drifting.
So, we stir ourselves up (2 Timothy 1:6), we make fresh commitments and start seeing some progress. For a while…
Then we realize we can’t keep this up. We can’t follow through on our great and sincere commitments.
So,
We back to “let go and let God” for some relief.
I don’t think there’s anyway around this. It’s part of the growth process.
When a baby is learning to walk, they lose balance. They fall down a lot. Eventually it becomes natural for them to walk, not hop, with minimal effort.
Even after all these years, I sometimes find myself emphasizing one of these two extremes. But I am getting closer to learning to live in the grace, rest, and power of God while also “disciplining and training myself for godliness.” (1 Timothy 4:8)
We can get there. We can learn to live in that wonderful balance of abiding in Jesus, living in His rest, while giving a great effort in living His purposes.
P.S. If you’ve tried to “think positive” but nothing sticks, these biblical tools will give you a deeper, lasting kind of joy.