Unburdened
Stop living for Jesus so He can live through you.
by VANCE PITMAN
FOR YEARS IN MY WALK with Jesus, I secretly believed Christianity to be exhausting. I so wanted to be the Christian I felt God wanted me to be, but something was missing. There were even verses in the Bible that made no sense to me. Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32), but I didn’t feel free. Jesus said, “Come to me, … and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28), but I had no rest. Instead, I felt burdened trying to keep all the rules.
The list of dos and don’ts seemed to grow daily. I was overwhelmed at how living for Jesus was just plain hard work. Day after day, no matter how hard I tried, I always seemed to fail. But then it happened!
By God’s grace, I came to the greatest discovery of my life: Jesus didn’t want me to live for Him; He desired to live His life in and through me. And His life is radically different!
The life Jesus offers through a relationship with Him leaves us unburdened and free. It begins in an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus. It spills into a fellowship relationship with other believers. And it overflows into cultivating relationships with others who don’t know Jesus so we can share Christ with them. Following Jesus is all about relationships!
When we follow Jesus, we stop working so hard, bound by the exhausting and burdensome rules of religion, and instead, we allow Christ to live His life through us. And as we walk in relationship with our Father, with one another, and with the world, we discover we do not need to settle for the cheap counterfeit of religion. We can live unburdened and free in the abundant life He truly offers us.
Senior pastor of Hope Church in Las Vegas, Nevada, VANCE PITMAN speaks across the country and world to inspire people to join God’s redemptive mission of making disciples and multiplying the church among every tribe, tongue, people,
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