‘Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.’ — John 1:16
‘Come to Jesus first, then work for Jesus.’ — Charles Spurgeon
When I was growing up, I thought that faith was primarily about achieving great things for God.
To me, it seemed clear from the Scriptures and the stories I heard in church and at summer festivals that people demonstrated great faith by doing impressive things for Him.
The framework was obvious:
Believe in Jesus → Achieve for Jesus
There’s a lot that’s right about that.
Faith in Jesus isn’t just agreeing with a set of principles. It’s aligning your whole life to His way in the power of His Spirit. Living faith must lead to intentional action (James 2:17).
Jesus called and drew people to Himself, and then sent them out to do what He had been doing: sharing the good news about His Kingdom, healing the sick, releasing the captives, and teaching people how to become and grow as His disciples.
Believe. Achieve.
But over the last few years, I’ve come to see that there’s something that’s missing from this—and that without it, the whole thing falls apart.
Before we do anything for Jesus, we must receive from Him.
When we believe in Jesus, we become united to Him, and we are brought into the life of the Trinity:
We are loved by the Father, in the same way as the Son, through the Spirit who assures us that we are His children (Romans 8:16).
We know the Father, who is revealed by the Son, and whose truth is illuminated by the Spirit (Matthew 11:27; 1 Corinthians 2:10–12).
We live to serve the mission of the Father, following the example of the Son, empowered by the Spirit (John 20:21–22).
But we can only receive this life—life in all its fullness—if we remain in Jesus. Otherwise, we can do nothing for Him (John 15:5).
And when you read through the Gospels, you start to notice that this is the kind of faith that Jesus is looking for: a faith that, first and foremost, is about receiving from Him, before we start to achieve anything for Him.
Take Jesus’ teaching about being like a child: “I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it” (Luke 18:17).
Children are completely dependent on their parents to provide for them—and if they live within a loving family, they instinctively believe that they will freely receive everything they need.
Before we achieve anything for Jesus, we must receive His Kingdom like a child.
Or look at what Jesus says about being the Vine: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me” (John 15:4).
The branches of a vine aren’t striving with all their strength to bear enough fruit to make the gardener happy. They simply draw life from the vine day after day, month after month, until they inevitably grow fruit.
Before we achieve anything for Jesus, we must receive His life like a branch on a vine.
This changes everything.
It means we avoid trying to live for Jesus in our own strength. It protects us from burning out after taking on far too much at our church. It releases us from feeling pressure to perform in order to prove our faith. It transforms obeying Jesus from feeling like a chore to being our hearts’ delight. It empowers us to actually do what He has told us to do—because, before anything else, we are receiving everything from Jesus.
Believe in Jesus → Receive from Jesus → Achieve for Jesus
Throughout history, people have achieved incredible things for God—but only because they first received Him: the truth of His Word, the power of His presence, the joy of His love.
And the amazing thing is that Jesus overflows with a limitless and infinite amount of all we need and desire, because He is the source of those things. He is love, peace, joy, strength, wisdom, truth, goodness, beauty—and He loves to be all of these things to you. He wants to be your everything, so that you can actually live in Him and all His fullness of life.
We just have to receive Him every day.
Remaining in His Word.
Worshipping Him.
Talking with Him.
Resting with Him.
Enjoying Him.
Because as we believe and receive from Him, only He knows what we’ll end up achieving for Him and His glory.
Thanks so much for reading—have a lovely weekend!
Love,
Theo