Jesus as our ballast equates to living with stability, simplicity, and childlike faith.  We’re not called to be professionals in one area yet immature in another; we’re to grow up in to the wholeness / fullness of Christ. (Eph. 4:13)  As we abide in Jesus and allow Him to be our ballast, we find peace, rest, joy, and effectiveness.

This is important to understand lest we fall into a performance oriented works lifestyle, rather than living as we do from the outflow of a first-love relationship with Christ.  One will result in burnout, the other results in the LIFE of Christ being manifest, through us.

TOPICS TOUCHED ON:

• The ballast of wholeness.  (Growing in all facets of life in Christ, not just one.)
  • “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ.”  (Ephesians 4:13)
• The ballast of God’s family.  (Living within the Family of God and the ramifications of being a son.  The importance of journeying together, benefitting from what each one brings to the body.)
  • “The Spirit makes you God’s children, and by the Spirit’s power we cry out to God, ‘Father! my Father!’ God’s Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God’s children” (Romans 8:15-16 TEV).
  • “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Heb. 10:24-25)
• The ballast of simplicity which brings peace and rest.  (If it’s complicated, you’re missing something.)
  • “But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”  (2 Cor. 11:3)
  •  “For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”  (Hebrews 4:10)
• The ballast of faith (and putting on the whole armor of God.)
  • “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”  (1 John 4:18)
  • “above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”  (Ephesians 6:16)

Coming to maturity involves growing in all areas, “into Him in all things.” (Eph. 4:15).   This equates to abiding in Christ, and thus no matter what storms come, Jesus will always be our ballast and keep us walking forward — in His love, power, effectiveness, character, and nature.