Death to the Overachiever

Focal Verse: "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:30).

The verse above is one of those verses in the Bible that gets us all warm and fuzzy inside. It's the kind of verse we like to memorize and take to heart.

Yet this verse has been one that I've never really experienced. Yes, I knew what it said, but I can recall reading it time and time again, thinking, "I just don't get it." It wasn't until recently when I realized the reason why I knew this verse in my head but not in my heart.

In my almost 18-year Christian walk, I have tried to "do" and "be" everything I thought was expected. When I used my gifts to serve the Lord, or if someone told me I was a blessing in one way or another, I cheered for myself. I had succeeded. On the opposite side, when I was hit with a sinful area I couldn't figure out how to master, I failed. Without realizing it, I was trying to "work" my way to approval from God. An overachiever, I subconsciously planned on "mastering" this Christianity thing once and for all. I struggled with sermons that talked about confessing sin, because I would realize I hadn't confessed of anything in such a long time. Surely I wasn't perfect, but for the life of me, I couldn't think of anything I had done wrong lately. I tried to "do" everything right. Though I knew I was saved by faith, I was living my Christianity by works.

And let me tell you, works wasn't working.

Then God hit me with an amazing revelation: there is nothing good in me. Now, to an overachiever like myself, this could have been a fatal blow. But instead, it brought freedom like none other. Once I realized that there is nothing good in me of myself, I realized that everything good in me is from God. What a relief! Any good I ever hope to be cannot come from myself but from God and His Spirit's work alone.

This revelation brought an amazing new light to the following verse: "Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom" (James 2:12). How can the law give freedom? With all the rules and regulations and the impossible expectations, how could we possibly gain freedom through the law? Because there is no possible way to live up to the law! The FREEDOM is that Jesus Christ through his death and resurrection covered my inability to ever be good enough. The freedom is that the only way I am to ever be all God has for me to be is to recognize that he IS the good in me. Only by dying to myself and allowing him to live in me will I ever please him.

Now the dying to myself isn't so easy sometimes. But at least I'm not trying achieve the impossible anymore. Once I let go of my ambitions to do it all myself, I can be free to let the Holy Spirit do his perfect work in me.

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