Enough Taking a Stand… I’m Taking a Seat

I grew up in an era in which Christians everywhere were challenged to take a stand.

Take a stand for Jesus.

Take a stand for your faith. For freedom.

Take a stand for God. For your school. For marriage.

It seems like God really needs his people standing up for him.

I totally get it.

We don’t want to be ashamed of our faith. We want to be proud of our Christian heritage. We want people to know about our loving savior.

But seriously… Does God really need me to stand up all the time? Is that the only way he reaches people? Am I really advancing his Kingdom by standing up for _______?

I’m not trying to be lazy.

It’s just the whole take a stand movement seems so forced.

I feel like God is great enough to advance his kingdom without the use of Christian picketing.

Taking a stand is overrated. From now on I’m taking a seat.
I will rest in Jesus’ finished work at the cross for me.

This doesn’t mean I will lay around and do nothing.

It does mean I’ll relax and allow him to be God.

People get into taking a stand because it feels like we’re contributing. It feels like we’re doing something. We justify our place in God’s family through hard work.

In truth, our place in God’s family is secured through Jesus’ finished work at Calvary. It has nothing to do with my ability to earn my place.

Furthermore God invites us to a life in which we can breathe a sigh of relief and quit running ourselves ragged to earn our salvation.

In fact when God gave instructions to Moses he gave him explicit instructions to chill out.

“I will personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest—everything will be fine for you.” (Exodus 33.14, NLT)

Jesus described life with him this way:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11.28-30, The Message)

How bout this one from the prophet Isaiah:

“Your salvation requires you to turn back to me and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves. Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me—The very thing you’ve been unwilling to do.” (Isaiah 30.15-16, The Message)

Perhaps the most famous passage in scripture on this is the 23rd Psalm:

“You, LORD, are my shepherd. I will never be in need. You let me rest in fields of green grass. You lead me to streams of peaceful water, and you refresh my life.” (Psalm 23.1-3, Contemporary English Version)

Look I’m not advocating hiding our faith or denying our beliefs from others.

Share how wonderful life with God is when people ask you questions.

I just think we Christians would be a lot better off if we’d take a seat and rest in God’s grace and goodness.

A relaxed, grace-filled loving relationship with our father in heaven is pretty attractive.

It doesn’t need defending and picketing.

Maybe others simply need an invitation to experience a peaceful, fulfilling and satisfied life with God.

One where it’s okay to relax and rest with our loving father.