Sweat....

My family and I have been back home for a while now and the holiday feels like a distant memory. However, it has been an amazing three weeks. We’ve experienced so many breakthroughs, both spiritual and physical. I’ve been training on the cycle trainer and it felt wonderful to once again work up a good sweat! It while I was working up this good sweat, that I was reminded of how much we, as people, enjoy making a ‘sweat’ of living. We absolutely adore having to struggle through life and burden ourselves with so much responsibility… isn’t it? No? Then why do we do it? Why, when Jesus did all the ‘sweat’ we’d ever have to do? Jesus, while on the cross, said the following: “It is finished!” We tend to read these words, think “oh its nice, isn’t it” and then just go on living a hard and ‘sweating’ life. Maybe we don’t really understand the implications of what Christ said! He did everything… There is nothing we can add to it… It is complete, a perfect work of salvation. No human ‘sweat’ needed to complete His perfect work of redemption. In the eyes of our Father, that which the Son has done, is enough! Our ‘sweat’ should only be directed at entering into His Rest (Hebrews 4:11), which is so much more than a holy or appointed day. The Rest that the Hebrews writer speaks of is an eternal celebration of God’s perfect work in Christ Jesus!

Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus,"

The moment we understand what Christ’s perfect work is, is the day we are liberated from all human laws and expectations. Isn’t it wonderful that now, we also are made part of Someone else? Wherever we look, we see people’s dire need for acceptance, our need to belong to something or someone. The Good News that we read in the Bible is exactly this; in Christ we are accepted by God Himself! PLUS: we are not placed in Christ by our own ‘sweat’, we are placed in Christ by God the Father (1 Cor 1:30)!

John 14:17 "The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive (welcome, take to its heart), because it does not see Him or know and recognize Him. But you know and recognize Him, for He lives with you [constantly] and will be in you."
Romans8:16 "The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God."

You are accepted by God, not because of your sweat, but because of His finished work! There is nothing that we can do or say to qualify us for Life, a Life in abundance. Nothing can bring satisfaction and fulfilment, nothing can make our lives more significant, but to understand our inclusion in Christ Jesus. It is His Presence in us and His character through us that constitutes LIFE (Galatians 5:22)!

Should we now just sit and wait for Him to do everything? No, that would be pure laziness. Life in the Spirit will sometimes mean working up a ‘sweat’, but this is not a ‘sweat’ so that (I can earn or achieve something), but a ‘sweat’ because of (I am compelled by His Spirit within me to do certain things).
Galatians 5:25 "If we live by the [Holy] Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. [If by the Holy Spirit we have our life in God, let us go forward walking in line, our conduct controlled by the Spirit.]"

Please do not just accept what you read (accept for the Bible) or hear- but feel free to leave a comment, ask a question or add something!