Chapter 5 - You Are Exhausted Because You Have Stopped Resting in Christ
This series imagines what Paul might say to the American church today—written in the tone of a pastoral letter, shaped by the finished work of Christ. It is not Scripture, but a grace-filled reflection using Paul’s voice to address modern challenges.
Paul, a prisoner for the sake of Christ and a witness to His finished work, to the weary saints throughout the American church: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Beloved, I have heard of your labors—how tirelessly you strive, how anxiously you plan, how heavily you carry the burdens of your lives, your families, your ministries, and your future. You are diligent, sincere, earnest in all things, yet many of you live as though the weight of the world rests upon your shoulders. You are hurried in your minds, weary in your hearts, and restless in your souls.
But this is not the life Christ secured for you.
For some of you have begun to believe that rest is dangerous, that slowing down will cause you to lose your standing, your progress, or the approval of God. Others imagine that if you do not constantly serve, give, sacrifice, produce, or perform, then somehow you will fall from grace—as though grace were maintained by human effort.
Hear me: rest is not the enemy of faith; it is the expression of faith.
Why do you live as though Christ has not finished the work?
Why do you return to the anxious labors of the old covenant, where blessings were conditional and acceptance had to be earned?
Why do you exhaust yourselves trying to accomplish what God has already accomplished for you?
Did I not tell you before that “the Son sets you free”? And is not freedom found in resting from the fear that you must secure your own life?
Many among you confuse busyness with fruitfulness. You believe that activity will produce maturity, that noise will produce clarity, and that striving will produce righteousness. But these things belong to the flesh, not to the Spirit.
The Spirit brings rest.
The Spirit brings confidence.
The Spirit brings assurance that Christ has done all, secured all, and fulfilled all.
I do not write these things to diminish your diligence, but to remind you that diligence without rest becomes toil. When you labor without resting in Christ, you produce works that drain the soul instead of works that flow from grace.
Beloved, you are not responsible for sustaining what only God can sustain.
You do not hold your righteousness together—Christ does.
You do not secure your future—Christ has already written it.
You do not maintain your union with God—Christ Himself is your union.
Therefore, come back to the rest you abandoned.
Not the rest of inactivity, but the rest of reliance.
Not the rest of quitting, but the rest of confidence in Him.
Let your souls breathe again.
Let your minds quiet.
Let your hearts be renewed by the truth that “there remains a rest for the people of God”—and that rest is found in Christ, not in your performance.
Return to Him, not as a worker desperate to impress, but as a child resting in the favor that has already been freely given.
For this is the life to which you were called:
not the anxious toil of earning,
but the peaceful assurance of receiving.
May the peace that is yours in Christ guard your mind with unshakable confidence.
