#4 2024 Top Ten Editors Note: Now through January 5 I am posting the Top Ten posts of 2024.
Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” – Psalm 46:10, NASB
What does it mean to cease striving, to stop working to be something, and to just rest in the knowledge of God. The word striving led me to the book of Ecclesiastes where the word striving (NASB) is repeatedly used with the phrase “striving after the wind.” It is working to seek that elusive goal as if to think you can capture the wind and contain it.
We do the same in our efforts to be good, to be righteous, to be a better person. Yet it is not our acts, our works that help us achieve these goals. It is by knowing God that we become His child, an heir to His righteousness. Just as Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Galatians 3:6, NIV), when we believe in Jesus, it is reckoned to us as righteousness.
To know God, to know Jesus, is to know righteousness. We shed the striving of the old person to become a new person in Jesus. To desire to know God is to seek His ways, His path for our life. To know God is to have a heart for Him. To desire His presence, His holiness.
© 2024, Chris G. Thelen
Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. – Genesis 15:6, NASB
Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. – Galatians 3:6, NASB
140 Character Christian 
Amen. Our walk with the Lord offers light when we trust Him.
Amen!
Amen! Not by “striving”, but through our relationship and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I say yes! Thank you!
Well said. Thank you for sharing. Blessings.
It’s my blessing! Thank you, too!
Freedom truth