Just as You Received Him
The path remains light when Christ carries the weight
📖 Devotional Credit: Days of Heaven on Earth
📸 Photo Credit: Unsplash
The devotional for today from A.B. Simpson brings us face to face with a truth so simple it’s often overlooked: the way we began in Christ is the way we are meant to continue. Many believers understand the moment of salvation—when they trusted in Jesus alone to rescue them from sin and death. But something often shifts after that. Instead of continuing in that same trust, we begin to strive, to labor, to try harder. We know Christ saved us, but we subtly start acting as though we are responsible for maintaining the Christian life in our own strength.
Paul gently reminds us in Colossians 2:6 that sanctification is not a new effort—it is a continued dependency. Just as we received Christ Jesus as Lord (helpless, trusting, yielded), so we are to walk in Him: resting, relying, and allowing His indwelling life to express itself through us.
Our old life has been laid to rest. Its striving is over. The new life we now live is hidden with Christ in God, continually upheld by Him. We don’t always see or feel it, but it’s real and secure. What a relief to know that the same Christ who justified us now lives in us to be our sanctification moment by moment. His life in us is not a one-time event—it is our present and ongoing reality.
📓 Personalized Journal Entry – Voice of the Holy Spirit Through Scripture
You received Me not because you had anything to offer, but because you came with nothing—open hands and a surrendered heart. I drew you near, cleansed you, and gave you My life. That life has not diminished. I am still the One who upholds you.
You were crucified with Christ, and now the life you live is not your own. It is Mine, flowing through you. Your efforts, no matter how well-intentioned, belong to a life already buried. I did not save you to see how well you could perform. I saved you so that I could live through you.
As you received Me—by grace through faith—so walk in Me the same way. Don’t pick up the burden of sanctification as though it rests on your shoulders. I am your sanctification. I am your holiness. I am your life.
Remain in Me, just as you began. Rest in My presence. Let Me be the rhythm of your day and the breath in your prayers. Your life is hidden with Me in the Father. You may not always see it, but nothing can separate you from it. I am everything you need.
Scriptures referenced: Colossians 2:6; Colossians 3:3–4; Galatians 2:20; John 15:4–5; 1 Corinthians 1:30
🧺 Real-Life Analogy
It’s like using autopilot in a car with adaptive cruise control. The moment you set it, the car maintains its pace, adjusts to the road, and even brakes or accelerates as needed. You don’t keep pressing the gas and brake—it does it for you. That’s the Christian life: setting your heart to trust and letting Christ carry you forward, responding to each moment through you.
🙏🏼 Prayer of Confidence
Father, I thank You that the way I entered into life with Christ is the very way I continue in it—by trust, not by toil. I rest today in the finished work of Jesus, knowing that His indwelling presence sustains me, shapes me, and expresses His life through me. I rejoice that I no longer have to struggle to be holy, because Christ is my holiness. My life is hidden in Him, and in this hidden place, I am safe, sustained, and satisfied.