This past week, I was blessed to teach at His Hill Bible School in Comfort, TX. I am so grateful for their ministry and my continued friendship with Charlie McCall, the General Director, and Jon Forrest, the Bible School Principal.

Although I go to teach the students, it is just as important to me that His Hill is my yearly reminder that we do not live the Christian life by self-effort but by resting in Christ.

They emphasize teaching students about their riches in Christ and living out the salvation they received by faith. Just as we have rested in Christ’s finished work on the cross for our salvation, we continue the same attitude of faith and trust—that is, of rest—in Christ’s sufficiency to live the Christian life.

Personally, that is an ongoing lesson.

In Free Grace circles, though we are crystal clear that salvation is by faith, there sometimes needs to be more clarity about how discipleship is also by faith. We rightly reject Lordship Salvation for justification, only to sometimes slip into that mentality for sanctification. There are exceptions to that. But I still see that cloudiness in my thinking and hear it in my conversations with others.

Personally, I need that yearly reminder that we are saved and continue to be saved in the same way—never in our own strength, but always resting in and relying upon Him.

When David reflected upon God’s glorious power and all the ways He had intervened on behalf of Israel—in scattering her enemies, championing widows, showering the earth with rain, and providing for the poor, he said:

Blessed be the Lord!
Day after day he bears our burdens;
God is our salvation. Selah (Psalm 68:18).

I love the image of God bearing my burdens day after day. Do you believe He does?

It is a sign of Christian maturity to trust Him to do it and to self-consciously rely in faith that God will bear your burdens daily. He is more than sufficient. And what’s more, you belong to Him. He will do it.

Of course, this daily burden-bearing is ultimately fulfilled in the Son of God, who bore the burden of becoming human, living under the law, and bearing our sin and guilt on the cross so that God could justify whoever has faith in Jesus (cf. Rom 3:26). But what I so appreciate about my time at His Hill, is the necessary reminder that the daily outworking of our salvation continues in the same way—not through self-effort, and not by doing works themselves, but in daily, moment-by-moment reliance upon the presence and power of the risen Christ. We live in Him and through Him. I need to hear that. I can so often depend on my own meager resources to try and live the Christian life on my own. And then I feel overwhelmed. I need the reminder that Christ is my salvation everyday.

Day after day, the burdens will come. And day after day, rely on Christ to bear them.

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Send your questions or comments to shawn@freegrace.in.

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