Are You Rowing or Sailing?

A wise pastor once explained to his congregation:

'The life of a Believer is like being in a boat. God has plans for you, and you can trust that He will complete His work in your life. The Holy Spirit is like the wind that will take the boat places.

Now you have a choice. You can get out the oars and start rowing with all your might, and exhaust yourself in the process. You might even row against the wind and become frustrated. Or, you can stop rowing and let out the sails, and let the wind carry the boat.

Similarly, you can try to do God's work in your strength and by your own effort, and become worn out, or even end up working against Him and become frustrated. Or you can surrender to God and let Him do His work in your life.'

Are you trying to please God through your own work and by your own strength? Are you trying to accomplish your own vision and fulfill your own dreams? Are you trying to make yourself a better person or a better follower by your own effort and legalism?

Or are you surrendering to His grace and recognizing your own inability to be transformed apart from Him? Are you trusting Him and allowing Him to direct your path and fulfill His purpose for your life? Are you resting in the Savior's finished work, and abiding in God's acceptance of you as you have been reborn in Christ, already declared righteous in heaven, and justified by His grace alone through faith in Christ?

Will you surrender? Will you trust? Will you rest? Will you abide?

Are you His child? Only those who believe in the Son are adopted as children of God, and made joint heirs with Christ Jesus.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." -Romans 8:28, NKJV

"I know that you [God] can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted." -Job 42:2, NIV

"being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;" -Philippians 1:6, NKJV

"For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" -Romans 8:29-32, NKJV

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." -Ephesians 2:8-9, NKJV

"And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work." -Romans 11:6, NKJV

"For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience." -Hebrews 4:10-11, NKJV

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved." -Ephesians 1:2-6, NKJV

"The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together." -Romans 8:16-17, NKJV

Grace and peace to you.