Weary Christians...what's the deal?

Have you ever gotten to the point in your Christian life where you were just tired of it...where you were weary in well doing (Galatians 6:9)? I've been there. I'm now reading a book by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones called "Spiritual Depression." In one section he talks about this verse and about the causes and cures for this form of spiritual depression. Let me share a few things that hit me.

"I must ask myself shy I have been doing this work [speaking of working as a Christian...and yet feeling weary] and what has been my motive. I have been active and I have enjoyed doing the work, but now I find it has become a burden. And now comes the question. Why have I really been doing it the whole time?"

This is a good question that many of us don't want to face. When we get weary in well doing we need to ask "What is my motive anyway?" He goes on to say:

"We have really been doing all that we have been doing, to satisfy self, in order to please ourselves, in order to be able to say to ourselves: 'How wonderful you are and how much you do'. Self says that we are important. We have to admit that it has not all been for the glory of God, but for our own glory."

Isn't that so true? If we were really out for God's glory and not our own why in the world would we be weary in doing His work. Didn't He call us to carry our own cross...to suffer for His name's sake? What do we expect? If we're working in the flesh and for our own glory then that is something we should get weary in.

The final "condemnation" that I needed to hear then came on page 199...we'd all better take heed:

"Let me remind you, that you are in the Christian life, and the Christian life is a life of well doing. If you regard the Christian life as a dreary task you are insulting God...If you and I come to regard any aspect of this Christian life merely as a task and a duty, and if we have to goad ourselves and to set out teeth in order to get through with it, I say we are insulting God and we have forgotten the very essence of Christianity. The Christian life is not a task...It is the kind of life the Son of God Himself lived. It is to be like God Himself in His own holiness.

Christian...get your eyes off this life, off this world, off our wants and desires and set our affections on things above, not on things of this earth. This is a dress rehearsal for eternity and we'd better not labour in the power of the flesh for the glory of the flesh.