With Simplicity of Heart

The Christian Faith is not a complicated faith. Repent of your sin – the sin of unbelief. The sin of hypocrisy, the sin of idolatry in all it’s forms… and believe the Gospel.

Believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead and in doing so brought the Kingdom of God to earth in order to save both you and it from destruction.

The evidence of that belief is also simple. Take up the teaching of Jesus Christ, along with it’s commandments, and follow Him in an obedient way of life that gives witness to the fact that Jesus, and not mammon, is your Lord.

This is not only the way of life, it is also the way of true rest and anything that moves your attention away from this simple walk of faith is a crippling distraction.

So, are you following Jesus or aren’t you?

You can answer that question by asking a few others. How’s your rest coming along? What are you working toward? What are you fighting over – or buckling under?

Are the demands on your time, money and labour demands that Christ has made or are they the demands of a pagan, money loving, idol worshipping, phone-swiping culture?

Stop and think about your work. Jesus says,

Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.(Matthew 11:28-30)

We work because we are commanded to work as the means by which we multiply material blessing and rest to others.

We work for the satisfaction of our souls. We were built for industrious labour. But if your work is not terminating in rest for you and those around you, it is not a yoke that belongs to Jesus. It’s some other heavy and unbearable yoke. The yoke of another master.

Stop and think about your worship.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth! (Psalm 96:9)

God is to be worshipped because He is God. His Son is to be honoured with our obedience because He is Lord and King.

If you are not worshipping Him, you are worshipping something else and you will go wherever that something else is going. Somewhere near Capernaum (Matthew 11:23).

We have all heard the Gospel. Tasted it. And with that hearing and tasting comes responsibility. The responsibility to respond by repenting of our sin, believing in the Good News and living with simplicity of heart.

For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God (2 Corinthians 1:12)

To hear and not do, Jesus teaches, puts us in a more damnable position than those who did not hear.

And so, be doers of the word, writes James, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves (James 1:22).

To hear and do with simplicity of heart is the way – and the only way – of rest for our souls.