You are NOT a Burden to God - So Share Your Burdens

 When we talk about salvation we also usually connect that with repentance. Asking forgiveness for our sins. Turning away from our old life and stepping into a new life in Christ. But sometimes that concept of repentance can unhelpfully morph into shame, condemnation, and self-consciousness.

We look at other Christians and start to feel inferior, unworthy. Like we could never be as holy or deserving as the Christians around us. Like we need to constantly serve penance in order for God to like us. Like we are a bother to God and to others.

But that’s not what I see in scripture.

Ephesians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

John 3:17 For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it through Him.

Sister Mary Grace SV teaches that heroes of the Christian faith aren’t the people who were the best at repenting or the ones who avoided the most shameful sins in their life. No, they were just the ones who learned (sometimes the hard way) to surrender to Jesus. They rested in the confidence that God loved them extravagantly and let Him take the lead in handling the challenges they faced.

This can feel counter-intuitive in our world of individualism and what feels like a constant fight. But the fight is exhausting, and that’s not God’s will for us -nor the heart of our Father.

God doesn’t begrudgingly save us. We aren’t burdening Him with our need for a Savior. It is His delight to save us. The Bible says He sings over us. We are His joy, His precious ones. We aren’t His human experiment, we are His children.

And one of the ways God created us to experience God’s love for us is through His other children, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Genesis 2:18a  Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone;”

Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

The “law of Christ” that Paul’s commanding us to obey here can be found in John 13:34: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

God designed us to be responsible for each other, to belong to each other. But just like we get self-conscious about our value to God, we get self-conscious about our value to others. We’re afraid we’ll overwhelm people with our burdens. We’re embarrassed to be vulnerable.

Most of us are quick to listen and pray when a friend needs to talk, or to bring a meal to a family in a challenging season, or to help a friend mourning a loss. But we don’t reciprocate; we don’t let others help us. We say no for other people, we don’t even let them know what is going on with us to even give them the opportunity to live out the law of Christ on our behalf.

You are not a burden to God. You are not a burden to the world. That’s a lie straight from Satan. Don’t let him destroy your sense of worth – or destroy the mutual love for each other in our church that Jesus is wanting to grow. When we keep our struggles to ourselves, we miss out on the powerful connection of vulnerability God is wanting to cultivate in His church and we perpetuate the very unhealthy lie that to be Christian is to have it all together.

I challenge all of us that the next time someone you trust asks you how you are doing, really tell them. Let’s let Oak Haven be a community that embraces God’s design for us to bear each other’s burdens.