Life Balance: How to Be Faithful with Everything Entrusted to Me

Everyone who is living, developing, growing, and expanding in their God-given purpose has to set the scales for a balanced life by continual learning and practice of “How to Be Faithful with Everything Entrusted to Me.” After all the Genesis blessings and direction of God to man is an amazing mandate. Consider these accounts of God’s thinking and actions in making mankind.

Genesis 1:27-28 (King James) 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Genesis 2:7 AMP then the Lord God formed [that is, created the body of] man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being [an individual complete in body and spirit].

Life as an eternal spirit with a soul existent in a temporal body is granted by God to each person entering this world. Therefore, every living human being has stewardship of a unique spirit, soul and body and sphere of life concerning each. Our lives and beings broadly consist of six dimensions which are spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, social, and financial. Balance is developed with a mindset of stewardship of each dimension as complementary to the whole being and life in view of time and eternity. This mindset is birthed, natured and sustained by assurance that God cares and has prepare for every dimension of our lives in time and eternity. This assurance is given by Jesus in His stated purpose of coming that we might have and enjoy life to full in abundance to overflowing. (John 10:10) This was/is accomplished by His redemptive work and received thru knowledge of Him by which is given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. (2 Peter 1:2-4)

To be clear, I do not purport to have mastered life balance. I have come to realize it is not possible to put life on auto pilot and watch it run smoothly. Decisions and choices are required daily. Further, I have tried to turn my life over to God many times but He won’t take it! To explain, surrender is not a momentary decision but a resolved lifestyle of rest in surrender to God in receipt of His love and grace thru faith at all times in every decision and choice.

What I have found is that balance is found in moment by moment intentional dependence upon God in total surrender. This journey in and to balance is one of humility of “faith fullness” in God, lived in His presence, under His authority, influence, and care with and by His power.

Here is what this work of believing on the finished work of Jesus Christ: 1) acknowledgment of God’s presence, (2) rest in God’s great love wherewith He loves us, (3) surrender to God’s authority and influence, (4) connected living receiving God’s abundance of grace and gift of righteousness to provide every good and perfect gift that gives dominion over life rather than life over you, (5) trust and entrusting God with purpose, plans and pursuits, and (6) dependence upon God’s Word and Spirit at all times to give us knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding with the power of God to do it.

Pressures, demands and temptations (internal and external to ourselves) that can keep us out of balance and make faithfulness with what we are entrusted with seemingly overwhelming are not overcome by suppression, but total continual unconditional surrender to God. In this surrendered life we find that His grace is sufficient as His strength operates perfectly in our weakness. Grace makes up the difference so we don’t have to torture ourselves with relentless pursuit of perfection or others idea of perfection. This surrender silence the voice of the accuser, with a simple heart commitment to live responsive to God giving only what He wants, how He wants it, when He wants it, and wherever He wants it.

Sounds great, but how? Some answers are in these passages that follow.

Matthew 6:32-34 (Message) What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. 34 “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

Since priorities define and calibrate focus and therefore balance among competing priorities, getting the single most important thing as the main thing and first priority of our focus is the foundation to build enduring balance. God’s counsel for main and most important sustaining key to balance and faithfulness is putting Him first in all things at all times. Particularly and even more intentionally so when we feel helplessly out of balance and committing more deeply and resolvedly to grow through willing adjustments as needed. When the center of gravity for our lives is God, He can keep our world in balance just as He does the universe the by the power of His word.

Our approach to balance must be to prayerfully, thoughtfully and intentionally prioritize the competing priorities of the six dimensions of life (spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, financial, social) with our spiritual health and that of others at the top; and then put God and His eternal purposes at the top of that list. Note that when God is our first priority and pursuit, Jesus says all of our human concerns will be taken care of. This is not a spiritual aloofness but an empowering surrender to live in what I call the “receive position”. The receive position is simply resting continually receiving the supply of God of all things in Christ’s finished work by grace through faith.

The following reveals God’s work of grace to maintain His order, priorities and balance in our lives, as we having received salvation thru Christ, allow His outworking from within us through reverence of responsive obedience. This is the handshake between the spiritual and the natural that gives balance to our life of faithful stewardship with everything that He has entrusted to us.

Philippians 2:13 (KJV) For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Perfect order and balance is achieved when God’s purpose and design for anything is followed and produces fruit/results accordingly. God is the one who enables you both to want and to actually live out His good purposes. Responsive obedience to God’s influence and leading brings continual adjustments to create, maintain and sustain balance. Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before God. That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.

The sum of the matter for us all to walk out moment by moment is total surrender to God, allowing Him in everything at all times to work in us both to will and to do what pleases Him. Only the God who created and sustains the heavens and the earth in balance is capable and readily orchestrates perfect balance in us who are made in His image and likeness.

Let us rest in surrender, taking the yoke of Jesus Christ upon us that He said is easy with a burden that is light. His call is to all who at some point find ourselves “feeling” weak and weighed down with heaviness of competing demands and priorities of life. His promise is that we will learn His nature and find rest for the mental and emotional labor of our will and works from our soul’s searching for a balanced life that is faithful with everything He has entrusted us with. (Matthew 11:28-30)

Remember this guiding truth from the wisdom of the Proverbs (10:22), “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.”

Selah - receive, meditate and apply with integrity of practice from conviction in your heart and mind.

You are loved and matter to God and us!

~ Pastor Mark

Senior Pastor Connected Church