“What is wrong with human effort?” This was the question my @bethmoorelpmstudy opened up with today. I processed this. Well, nothing? Right? I mean after all Hebrews 4:11 calls us to “make every effort to enter God’s rest.” & 2 Peter 3:14 reminds us to “make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with God.” Beth reminds us that the Hebrew word for effort is “spoudazo”, meaning to be eager to do one’s best. But, are we being eager to do our best for ourselves with humanly and worldly help, or are we eagerly pursuing Jesus without the need for human efforts at all? I think often when we fail we fall into this trap of believing that we aren’t deserving enough of His love, therefore convincing ourselves that we need to perform in order to feel it again- in other words putting in the wrong kind of effort to fix something. God’s love is not based on our performance or effort, this is an unbiblical us humans cling to in troubles. No, God’s love for us is based on what He did on the cross for us, so we must be trusting that because of HIS actions, His ways are always higher and His love is always present. Why is it that we cling to these worldly, circumstantial definitions of God’s love when we know His love for us is eternal? 1 Corinthians 3:19-20 says: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the scriptures say: he catches the wise in their craftiness and again, the Lord knows that the reasoning of the wise are futile” The reasoning of this world is futile, incapable of producing any real result. That is why we must fully trust Him. We think we know God, we think we understand His ways and can mimic His efforts in our life’s but Isaiah 55:3 reminds us that His thoughts are not ours nor are His ways. Today, I challenge you to pray over “spoudazo”. Who’s effort are you relying on? Yours or God’s? How can you shift your efforts to eagerly pursuing Him rather than pursuing your own foolish ways? Remember, our reasonings and efforts without God are incapable of producing any results, but WITH GOD, we will see all things GOOD come to fruition. MKG
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