Jesus Proved It All

I need to begin with words that may hurt initially. These diagnostic words are the opposite of everything Pinterest and Instagram are telling you. You may not like these words at first, but I think the truth in them will change everything.

You are not enough.

We aren’t. None of us. It’s a universal diagnosis. But after we absorb the initial shock and hurt of that truth, it’s usually followed by a wave of relief. We understand there is a reason we all feel a deep-in-our-bones problem. Then and only then can we allow Jesus to meet our enormous need.

I am full of hope. Though we’ve been looking in all the wrong places for freedom, the door to true freedom is now found in a difficult diagnosis. It’s a door to the most tender, kind, freeing, full hope.

This truth can make you more free and full of hope than you’ve been in years.

UNFORCED RHYTHMS

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. — Matthew 11:28-30, MSG

Are you tired?

Worn out?

Burned out on trying to measure up? Trying to prove yourself?

Maybe we are doing this life all wrong.

What if instead of waking up feeling empty, you awoke so full of wisdom and joy you couldn’t help but give it away?

What if instead of living insecurely, you were watching God move through you in ways you couldn’t believe?

What if instead of living in fear, you lived seeing potential?

What if instead of craving things you can’t ever seem to get, you were fully satisfied and at peace?

What if instead of numbing out because you are tired of striving, you were at peace and could enjoy your life?

Jesus has a plan for our emptiness, our fatigue, our inadequacies, our sin.

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. — John 7:37-38

Jesus is saying, Keep coming back to Me and I will keep satisfying you. And out of that life with Me, you will overflow and bring life to others.

WHY ARE WE HERE?

We are here because it seems everything in us is fighting to keep us from getting to the water we are so thirsty for. We are here because we need each other in this fight and we need to remember there is water, and it is worth fighting the war currently blazing against us. I see it in every one of your eyes when we sit and talk about how you are really, actually doing. War. We hesitate to use the word because it sounds dramatic on a Tuesday, when the thought before this one was that tomorrow is trash day. But you feel it.

We want to think the war is out there, out there on the Internet, out there on the news, out there in other countries, out there in prisons, out there in everyone else.

So we say, “I’m okay.” We think that and say that and try to mean it.

But the fight is always right here with us. So many of us stay thirsty, even though cold, living springs of water are right over the hill, completely available to us. Pretending to be at peace never ended a war. Engaging. Fighting. Coming together for great purposes. That is what ends wars.

Nothing to Prove is about taking hold of that which has already been given to us. It is about reminding ourselves from Scripture who we are in Christ.

Jesus is enough, so we don’t have to be. In fact, it is downright arrogant to keep trying to be. The reality is that He is the enough we could never be.

I have Nothing to Prove because Jesus proved everything.

Excerpted with permission from Nothing to Prove by Jennie Allen, copyright Jennie Allen.

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Your Turn

Are you feeling burned out from all the striving, doing, being, going, and trying to prove yourself? Why? Jesus already did that for you! We believers don’t have to live insecurely trying to scratch our way through life; that’s the wrong way of doing it. It’s time for some unforced rhythms! Come share your thoughts with us. We want to hear from you! ~ Devotionals Daily