Enjoy Jesus
Find satisfaction in Him.
When God frees us from guilt, shame, fear, depression, greed, etc., and fills us with the all-sufficient presence of Himself.
There is only one motive left… the joy of sharing your fullness, for His glory.
Faith is not a physical action… it’s a soul action, coming to Jesus for satisfaction.
Saving faith is the awakening of joy in Jesus. The awakening of the flow of God’s Spirit in us.
John 4:13-14 (NLT)
Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
Christian life doesn’t stop with believing, accepting, and eating and drinking of Jesus… it becomes a well, inside, springing up to life.
We are connected to the vine. His life continues to flow through us.
John 7:37-39 (NLT)
On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” (When he said ‘living water,’ he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.)
This is not a geographical coming, but a soul coming, a hungry soul hearing of God’s love: born, lived, died, rose. We don’t understand it. We believe it.
Out of him will flow Rivers of living water.
That’s not preachers… or upper-level saints… that’s Christians, everyday Christians. Whosoever believes, out of his heart, out of your Christian heart flow Rivers of living water.
Your life becomes life giving. People around you get life. You don’t drain people… you give life to people. Christians are centers of energy, centers of life! A well springing up and a river flowing out!
John 1:10-13 (NLT)
He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
They are reborn-not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
Receiving Jesus is what believing is.
What is the action of believing… receiving… accepting?
I accept that I am forgiven because of what Jesus did for me. I live forgiven. I live loved.
What is the heart doing while receiving?
The soul’s drinking of the living water that Jesus is, drinking with sweet soul satisfaction, or drinking with enjoyment.
Receiving Jesus is the soul’s eating of the bread of heaven, which He is, to the soul’s satisfaction or enjoyment in Jesus.
John 6 :35. I am the bread of life.
So many Christians find themselves in cycles of performance, exhaustion, burnout, trying to earn what was freely given to them.
Many people treat God like a point system. Prayed today, earned a point. Read my Bible, earned a point. Messed up, lost a point. Did something good, earned a point back.
The new covenant is not a system, it’s a relationship.
So many are caught up in striving and performance, and effort, but they need to experience the peace of true rest in Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the fulfillment of every prophecy and every covenant. Jesus is the only fountain of spiritual life.
Jesus is the ultimate channel of blessing in the covenant. Our main goal and main task should be to abide in Jesus.
What about the world we live in today!
How can we deal with our society in this day and time, when our society goes against our grain and actually makes us mad and upset? We can get frustrated with the world around us….
But when we spend time with God, spend time drinking in worship, people around us drinking, being filled with the Word of God, there wells up within us a well of water, a love and a care for the world around us, and for our brothers and sisters in Christ.
The disagreements about politics, or various issues don’t go away.
But the anger, and the pride, and petty frustrations, and worldliness begin to go away as we worship Him.
And there begins to flow out a river of care and love. And a desire for God to be glorified in our lives. His satisfaction in our life begins to overflow. Jesus Christ is the satisfaction of our souls.
This is freedom that gives itself away.
God didn’t create us to meet His needs, but so that He could enjoy meeting ours… meaning that our reason for being is not to meet God’s need, but to let Him glorify His fullness in meeting ours.
We exist to give God the occasion to show off mercy. For His glory.
That is a life revolutionizing truth.
God made you so He could pour something into your life, not take something from your life.
God made you to provide Himself more opportunities to overflow with mercy, and to meet needs, and to be kind, and to love.
This is a vision of God’s being.
God’s very being implies that the load of serving Him to meet His need or to satisfy some lack in Him is lifted from your shoulders.
Our serving and worshiping of Him with our lives is so that He is glorified in and through us.
All of this is made possible in Jesus. Through the gospel. Rest in the gospel. Rest in Jesus. Rest in God’s forgiveness
How do you rest in the finished work of Jesus, how do you stop the striving, the work, the self-effort, and all the trying? The answer is, you just gotta let go of it all, but how do you do that? It sounds a lot easier said than done.
This is a really interesting thing to try to put into words, but I’m gonna try. So striving is not just about doing a lot, it is about trying to stay in control of how you think that you should be for God. We think, if I could just fix this, or be more disciplined, or pray more, read more, become a better Christian, then I’ll finally feel closer to him. But the truth is, there’s actually no distance there. And He’s not asking you to fix yourself. He’s asking you to trust Him. You can’t fix what you didn’t create. He’s the one who began the good work, and He’s the One who finishes it.
And here’s the part a lot of people don’t get. It will feel exactly like giving up… because it is. But when you give up, you’re not quitting on God, you’re finally trusting Him with the very thing you’ve been trying to control. You’re saying, Father, I don’t even know what you’re trying to do in me, but I trust you with it.
Because the truth is we don’t know what God wants to transform in us, or how He’s even gonna do it… we just think we know. We think we need to look or act a certain way for Him, but most of the time, He’s not even focused on the things that we’re stressing over. He loved you at your worst, so He can’t love you any more at your best. He loves you regardless, He meets you right where you’re at, and He’s not worried about you the way that you’re worried about you.
Becoming a better Christian doesn’t get you into heaven, Jesus already did that part. God is not trying to fix you so you could be more worthy of Him. He’s Fathering you, because He knows what’s best for your life. His goal is not behavior modification, it’s heart transformation. And that happens in His timing, not ours. So, you stop striving when you stop trying to rush the process, or manage your own transformation, and you let the Father do what only He can do.
Jesus said, come to me and I will give you rest. That rest does not come when you finally get everything right. It comes the moment you stop trying to control what only He can handle, what only He could do. So yeah, it feels like giving up. But that’s what trust feels like.
You stop striving when you finally let go, and you stop trying to be who you think you should be, and you let Him Father you into who you really are. That’s where the real rest begins. And that’s where the freedom is.
The Father is working through the Son, so the Son says, “abide in me.” “Remain in me.”
Many times people believe and they accept Jesus and then they say, what’s next? But it’s all about Him. We cannot grow or bear fruit or be satisfied apart from Him.
Jesus said, if you are separated from me, you cannot do anything.
Once you have looked at the cross, and seen Jesus as your substitute, and believe in Him…. Rest in His finished work. This is the secret to happiness in the Christian life.
“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” John Piper
The Father is going to continue cleaning us and doing His work in us so that we bear fruit.
This year you may be thinking of new goals. But may 2026 be the year we remain in Jesus as never before.
Live in love.
Love is motivated by the joy of sharing our fullness; the works of the flesh are motivated by a desire to fill an emptiness.
Live Loved. Live forgiven. Enjoy Jesus.
This message was a mixture of my notes. Some notes or thoughts are originally from various authors and pastors.