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Busyness Isn't A Virtue

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In our “Jesus Works” sermon series in Matthew 7 and 8, we’ve been learning how Jesus’ love breaks cultural boundaries. Jesus healed a leper by touching him: a man for whom isolation had defined his existence as ritually unclean. Jesus healed a centurion’s servant: a Gentile whom the Jews had socially ostracized. Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law: a person whose gender meant she was ill-esteemed. Through His miracles, Jesus invites us to consider how our assumptions about the way we live can prevent us from experiencing the love He desires to give us.

Could our desire to have full schedules, even ones packed with tasks we think bring God glory, actually be a cultural norm Jesus wants us to question? Often, we can take Jesus’ call to follow Him as a command to get busy doing things for Him, forgetting that anything we accomplish only flows from trusting in and depending on Him first. If we’re not careful, we start to think that being busy shows our success and our dedication, when really, we can use our busyness as a way to justify ourselves and do away with God’s grace.

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Consider what Pastor Adam Mabry says about the god of busyness:

Busyness isn’t a virtue; it’s often a vice. Of course, God has told us as much:

It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. (Ps. 127:2)

The God of Scripture isn’t impressed by busyness; he’s moved by love. When we remember he loves us and, at the end of all our work, we utterly depend on him for everything, we can rest well. Really well. It’s the god of this world who is the author of a system where busyness is a status symbol. To the true God, it’s just sad…

Trusting Jesus in your work means learning to put it down and enthrone him in your rest.”

Busy Quote

Have you been striving, trying to earn God’s love? A life lived in busyness only leads to joyless exhaustion. Maybe it’s time to lay our schedules at the feet of Jesus and find true life in Him as He graciously gives us rest.

Want to learn more about how to glorify God with your schedule? Read the rest of the article here: Stop Bowing to the God of Busyness.

By Rachael Heinsen

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