Ephesians 2:4-6,10 NASB95
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, [5] even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), [6] and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, [10] For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Nothing is more exhausting than trying to work for God, and nothing is more exhilarating than God working through you. In Ephesians 2:6, we are told that we have been raised up with Christ and are now seated in the heavenly places in our union with him. Being seated, of course, is a resting position; yet verse 10 says that we were created for good works and that we are to walk in them. So are we to rest, or are we to work? Are we to be seated, or are we to walk? The answer to both of those questions is a resounding YES! We are to rest while we work, and we are to be seated while we walk. Resting in the Lord is not inactivity; it is resting in His activity. Notice that verse 10 says we are created in Christ Jesus for good works. It doesn’t say that we were created by Christ Jesus to go out and do good works. Our new birth happened by our being formed in the fiber of all that Jesus is, and therefore the good works are an overflow of His existence pulsating in us and overflowing through us like rivers of living water. A great verse that explains what I’m saying is Acts 19:11; “And God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul.” Paul wasn’t performing for God; God was performing through Paul’s available hands.
Paul even says in verse 10 that these works we are to walk in were already prepared in advance. There were a number of times in the Gospel of John that Jesus said that he did nothing on his own initiative. As much as Jesus accomplished in the 3 1/2 years of his public ministry, he never initiated one thing. He simply walked in what the Father initiated. If God has prepared the works that we are to walk in in advance, then we have nothing to be anxious about because not only does Jesus live in us prepared to do the good works, He has also already gone before us and prepared the way.
Therefore, you and I can rest while we work. We can rest in the fact that everything we face every day (the tasks at hand), Jesus is living in us to accomplish them through us, and he’s already gone before us; therefore, nothing will take him by surprise. Seated; resting on the inside while walking and working on the outside is the normal joy filled Christian life.