Stop Mixing

The most exhausted person in the room isn’t the one working the hardest.

It’s the one trying to earn something that’s already free.

Most of us would never say out loud that we’re trying to earn God’s approval. But then we pray and quietly wonder if he actually heard us because of what we did last Tuesday. We serve, but somewhere underneath it we’re keeping score. We read our Bible and walk away feeling worse than when we started because we turned it into a measuring stick instead of seeing Jesus in it.

That’s not a passion problem. That’s a mixing problem.

Hot water heals. Cold water refreshes. Mix them together and you’ve got something that helps nobody. That’s what happens when you take grace and mix it with performance. You end up just spiritual enough to feel okay and just guilty enough to never feel free.

Lukewarm isn’t a temperature. It’s a recipe.

And here’s the thing… God can actually work with someone who’s completely broken by the weight of the law. A broken person cries out. A broken person runs toward something. But the person who’s halfway between grace and guilt? They just… exist. Comfortable enough to stay. Empty enough to never really live.

Jesus said he’d rather you pick a lane.

Here’s the big idea: Grace was never meant to be something you graduate from. It’s the thing you live in… every single day, at every single stage.

So here’s the lane worth picking. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Not a little. Not on a good week. None. Your standing before God isn’t based on how you showed up this week. It’s based on how Jesus showed up… on a cross, two thousand years ago and said it is finished.

Not it’s a good start. Finished.

You can’t add to that. You were never supposed to. You just receive it and actually live like it’s true.

That’s where the freedom is. That’s where the fun is, honestly. Not in striving harder… in finally putting it down.

Stop mixing. Pick the grace lane. It was always meant to be free.

Pray this simple prayer today: God, I’m done trying to earn what you already gave me. Today I receive it. The guilt, the striving, the keeping score… I’m putting it down. Teach me what it actually feels like to live free. I’m in the grace lane. Amen.

BEN DAILEY

www.awakenchurch.ac

benwdailey@awakenchurch.ac

972.261.1919

LEAD PASTOR