What you need to understand is that self-effort will rob you of reigning in life by God’s grace.

Gospel Corner

16/08/25

Joel Osteen Ministries

Today’s Word
Today’s Scripture
Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat.
Mark 6:31, NLT.

Living Balanced

You’re a three-part being—spiritual, physical, and emotional. You have to take care of each one. You can pray for twenty-four hours a day, but you’re not going to feel well physically. You can go to the gym and work out five hours a day, seven days a week, but if you’re not taking time for your spiritual and emotional side, you’re not going to be your best. You can’t stay up all night and not get proper sleep and expect to have the passion you need. You can’t drink twenty cups of coffee a day, eat junk food, and expect to feel well. Some people are discouraged, don’t have any energy, and they’re praying for a miracle. If Jesus showed up, He would say, “Get away and quiet yourself. Get some sleep. Start eating better. Take care of yourself.”

Living balanced is the key. You have to take care of all three parts. You will be your most productive, your most effective, when you’re balanced physically, spiritually, and emotionally. If you neglect one area, it will lessen what you could accomplish.

A Prayer for Today
“Father, thank You for giving me my body to live in and to care for as a temple of Your Spirit. Thank You for the example of how Jesus would get away and be refreshed when He was tired. Help me to be wise about taking care of myself and living balanced. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

There are many believers who are defeated because they are struggling to qualify for God’s blessings through their own works. What you need to understand is that self-effort will rob you of reigning in life by God’s grace.

You cannot earn your salvation, healing, or financial breakthrough by your own efforts. If the greatest miracle—being saved and made alive with Jesus—comes by grace through faith, and not by your works, how much more the lesser miracles, such as healing, provision, and restored marriages?

It is not about your work or performance, but Jesus’ work and performance. Only His work is a finished work. And not only did He sit down at the Father’s right hand, but today’s Scripture states that He also made us sit with Jesus!

What does this mean? Well, my friend, “sitting down” in the Bible is a picture of the believer resting in the perfect and finished work of Jesus. Christ has finished all the work on the cross on your behalf and is now seated at the right hand of God.

As it has all been accomplished on your behalf, this means that you can stop depending on your self-efforts to earn and qualify for God’s blessings in your life. You can sit down with Jesus at the Father’s right hand!

Now, listen carefully to what I am saying. I am not advocating a life of passiveness and laziness regarding the study of God’s Word, prayer, or worship. When it comes to success in your job, I’m also certainly not saying that you shouldn’t be diligent or seeking to develop your abilities. God’s grace does not make you lazy and unproductive.

On the contrary, it makes you labor more abundantly for His glory. The apostle Paul, a preacher of God’s grace and the finished work of Jesus, said that he “labored more abundantly than they all” (1 Cor. 15:10).

What you need to realize is, in the new covenant, God’s way is to bless you first, and the knowledge of His blessing then empowers you to labor more abundantly. In other words, we do not labor to be blessed, but rather we have the power to labor because we are already blessed. Can you see the different premise for laboring in the new covenant?

My friend, Jesus has accomplished everything for us on the cross. Our part is to trust in His perfect work. Receive with open arms His abundance of grace and His gift of righteousness, and sit down and begin to reign in life through Him.

Today, let it be your prayer that you will stop trying to earn God’s grace and righteousness. Let the Holy Spirit teach you to start depending on Jesus’ finished work and to start receiving by His grace. This is God’s way to success, wholeness, and victorious living!