Living in the Garden of Grace: Doing Your Best for Jesus?
Reflections on David Kuykendall’s Living in the Garden of Grace
A Common Misstep
"Are you doing your best for Jesus?"
It’s a question often posed to challenge believers to strive for greater devotion. Yet, according to Kuykendall, this approach is not just misguided—it’s dangerous and unfruitful. God’s design is not for us to labor in self-effort, but to yield ourselves so He can work through us.
Consider this crucial distinction: Are you relying on your own strength to serve the Lord, or are you allowing Him to express His life through you?
The Folly of Self-Effort
When we attempt to “do our best for Jesus,” we often experience frustration and disappointment. Self-effort leads to fruitlessness because it relies on the flesh rather than the Spirit.
Paul’s command in Romans 6:13 offers a better way:
“[Present] your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”
This command, part of Kuykendall’s five imperatives for living by grace, calls us to make ourselves available for God to work through us. When we yield in this way, God produces fruit in and through us.
The Danger of Fleshly Service
Why is serving God in the flesh so dangerous? Paul warns of the consequences in Galatians 5:19-21:
“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like …”
Even those with the sincerest intentions can fall into these works of the flesh when they rely on their own efforts. Sadly, many who seem to love God the most have stumbled in this way, not because they lacked devotion, but because they were striving in their own strength rather than resting in Christ.
God’s Work, Not Ours
True fruitfulness comes not from us “doing our best for Jesus,” but from Jesus doing His work through us. As we live in grace, obeying the Spirit’s leading and presenting ourselves to God, He accomplishes His purposes through us.
This is the essence of the exchanged life: not striving in self-effort, but yielding in faith and allowing Christ to live His life through us.
A Prayer of Dependence
Lord, I acknowledge that my best efforts, apart from You, are fruitless. I choose to yield myself to You, trusting that You will work through me as I live in the grace You have provided. May Your life in me produce the fruit that brings glory to Your name. Amen.
A Final Thought
God does not call us to strive in our own strength, but to rest in His sufficiency. As we abide in Him, presenting ourselves as instruments of righteousness, His Spirit works through us to accomplish His purposes. True service for Jesus is not what we do for Him, but what He does through us.