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Growing Up Into Christ
45
When God speaks of rest, He does not mean stopping all work.
The Saviour’s promise of rest is united with a call to work. “Take my
yoke and put it on you; ... and you will find rest.”
Matthew 11:29
.
The person who rests most fully on Christ will be busy working hard
for Him.
When we are thinking of self, we are turning away from Christ,
who gives us strength and life. Satan knows this, and he is always
trying to keep our minds turned away from the Saviour. He wants to
keep us from living and working with Christ.
Satan uses the pleasures of the world in trying to turn our minds
away from God. He uses life’s worries and sorrows. He uses the
faults of other people and our own faults and weaknesses to turn our
thoughts from God. We must not let Satan trick us with his plans.
Many who really want to live for God spend too much time
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thinking about their faults. In this way Satan tries to separate them
from Christ and hopes to gain the victory. We should not make self
the center of our thoughts, nor worry whether we shall be saved.
Thinking of self turns our minds from God, who gives us strength.
We should give ourselves to God and trust in Him. We should talk
and think of Jesus, and forget ourselves.
We must put away our fears and believe in God. Then we may
say with the apostle Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ
who lives in me. This life that I live now, I live by faith in the Son
of God, who loved me and gave his life for me.”
Galatians 2:20
.
God asks us to rest in Him. He is able to keep that which we
have given to Him. If we leave ourselves in His hands, He will give
us power through Jesus to make sure that we win the battle against
Satan.
When Christ became a human being, He tied the people of the
world to Himself by a tie of love. This tie can never be broken except
by our own choice. Satan is always trying to get us to choose to
break this tie to Christ. We need to watch and pray that nothing will
lead us to
choose
another master. We are always free to do this.
Let us keep our eyes on Christ, and He will hold us. We are safe
when we are looking to Jesus. Nothing can take us out of His hands.
We are to look at Him all the time, for then “that same glory, coming
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from the Lord, ... transforms us into his likeness.”
2 Corinthians
3:18
.