Just a quick thought stimulated by a recent book by Tim Keller (The Reason for God) that our church is reading in a men’s group.
I like the thought (which he makes) of distinguishing between religion and gospel. Religion as a whole pushes one toward salvation through moral effort. The Gospel is about salvation through grace, entirely by the work of another, Jesus Christ.
So there’s two ways to reject that gospel, that good news. Both ways are essentially being your own Lord and Savior.
The first way is to be a rebel: “I can live my life just how I want to!” This is obviously a desire to be one’s own Lord.
The second way is also to be a rebel… internally: “I can trust my own goodness, avoid sin, and live morally so God blesses me!” This is the same rebellion as the first, really – I will decide for myself the mode and method of God’s grace. I won’t submit to the way of Christ. This second rebel is who Jesus addressed throughout the gospels… folks we usually refer to as Pharisees.
Both ways of rebelling are a rejection of the gospel. You really can avoid Jesus as Savior as much by trying to keep all the rules you find in the Bible as by ignoring them.
I wonder how many of us are really Pharisees… internally driven by despair caused by sin, with no identity as a truly righteous adopted child, united to the Son of God through the blood and sacrifice of that Son, Jesus Christ. Pharisees… always wondering if we’re good enough, always comparing selves with others, always realizing that the inside doesn’t match the outside.
May we never build our identity on our moral achievements (religion), just as we rightly flee from building our identity on our job, our hobby, or our spouse. May our identity be foundationally grounded on the rock that is a relationship with Jesus Christ, the living God.
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live I in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
Who I was, my self-identity, self-righteousness, self-orientation – he is dead. My only hope is Christ. May I not return to trusting in who I was, in what that flesh through its own effort could do. May I trust wholly in Christ, in what He has done. By God’s Word and His mercy toward me, I know this is the gospel of grace.
Galatians 2:20 says that our life now is by faith in the Son of God. The content of that faith is that His righteousness truly does save me, that I have an eternal future with Him. My life now is wholly given over to Him, not as effort for more righteousness of my own, but for grateful living in His ways, building up other people, worshiping this God. The fruit of my mouth, praising Him; the fruit of my life, shining forth the result of the Spirit working in me. United to Christ forever.
I was struck again today at how our God uses the small, seemingly insignificant minutiae of our lives to mold us, to shape us, to grow us… and to glorify Himself. We have such a wonderful, strange, unknowable, un-figure-out-able God!
This is all over the Bible. But one example is in 1 Samuel 9. It’s a typical day in the life of a farmer… who loses his donkeys. So his son, Saul, goes looking for them with a servant. They look, and look. No donkeys. So one says, ‘Hey, I’ve heard there’s a prophet in the town nearby where we’ve ended up, let’s go ask him where the donkeys are.’
Well, how random can the Bible get? Donkey searches? What does grace have to do with donkeys that can’t be found?
Because the account in 1 Samuel then notes, ‘Now the Lord had told Samuel (the prophet) in his ear the day before Saul came…’ (9:15). That’s right. The day before, the Lord had arranged it all.
So what appeared as a random act of lost donkeys (who unlocked the gate!?!) actually was absolutely planned by God. And Saul, in looking for his donkeys, is brought to Samuel to be annointed king of Israel.
He does that, our Savior. He uses insignificant events and daily life to move and grow and bless us. He uses seemingly insignificant events to bring about His purposes.
Proverbs 16:9 says “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”
Proverbs 20:24 echoes, “A man’s steps are of the Lord.”
What’s happening with your donkeys today? Is not God in charge of you, graciously using the circumstances of your life for your good? Our Lord is so fantastically, providentially good to us!
So in reality there is no such thing as an insignificant day, no boring, unprofitable hours for the believer. May that not drain us (Oh no, God is watching!) but may our Lord’s providential grace expand our hearts as we rest in the goodness and love of our Savior.
This little nook of the web is called “practical grace.” That’s because true grace, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ, is the most practical, life-impacting thing I have ever encountered. My personal outlook on life, my day-by-day living, has been radically altered by this true grace found in Christ.
It seems that our initial confession of Christ almost always is accompanied by a deep appreciation of what Jesus did for us. A sinless life lived on our behalf, an unjust death on the cross, blood shed for our sins. What grace, that God has saved a wretch like me!
The grace of righteousness given lights up the sky of my life!
What has taken time and effort in my Christian life is the appropriating of the continuing grace of the gospel in my daily life. My life continues to be about Jesus Christ and His righteousness; He is as central today as the day He saved my soul, or even the day before the foundation of the Earth that He chose me in Him (Ephesians 1:3). My salvation includes my sanctification.
I think this is why the New Testament so emphatically affirms that godliness is not primarily a set of actions but a person (1 Timothy 3:16). Our life is hid in Christ; our whole existence is in union with Him. Including the existence I have after conversion.
From the Gospels to Romans to Ephesians to Galatians to Hebrews… in the Old Testament and in the New… God reveals that it is only through and in His Son, the Messiah, that we will ever stand before Him. Our relationship with Him is the center of life, really the only life we now have. Colossians 3 summarizes this well: “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:3-4).
Ok… so I hear internet-minds thinking… this sounds like great, deep theology. It sounds heady and ethereal, but not really practical.
But the gospel (grace, our union with Christ) is fantastically practical. It is so intensely practical that it is hard to know where to begin.
For one, the centrality of grace is radically different than any other religious belief system known to man. What it practically produces is humility mixed with grateful service, rather than judgmental self-effort.
One Christian author puts it this way: “Grace understood and embraced will always lead to commitment. But commitment required will always lead to legalism.” (Jerry Bridges, Transforming Grace, p. 128)
But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The gospel of grace has ongoing specific answers to the realities of our life – often typified in questions like:
• Do I have enough? Many people (Christians included) spend their whole lives striving toward some summit (money, approval of men or God, self-security).
• Am I good enough? Many people (Christians especially) live lives trying to “measure up” to a moral standard, and evaluate their lives based on their own righteousness.
• Am I valuable? Many people (again, Christians included) think they’re only valuable based on how ‘good’ they’ve been lately. We condition our feelings so that we feel good when we do certain actions (or avoid others).
The gospel of grace has important answers for daily living because it strongly answers these questions. It proclaims that our union with Christ is the center of our lives right now – we have such riches! It shouts that our worth is found only in Him. It thunders with the fact that the only righteousness we will ever have is someone else’s given to us.
One of the central struggles of the Christian life is that we are constantly pushed by the world away from persevering in the truth of the gospel. We are constantly pushed away from faith in the only righteousness or godliness we will ever have – away from faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Here is the gospel:
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin, so that you might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Here’s how I’m tempted to alter this good news:
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin, so that you might with great effort on your behalf become eventually the righteousness of God” (Not in the Bible).
Do you see the difference? Inasmuch as I am “in Christ” I am the righteousness of God. Even though I can’t write that sentence without trembling, my union with Christ means I have imputed (given, really counted, actually obtained) to me His righteousness. I can’t be putting my righteousness in His place. Not even the righteousness which I do after conversion.
(By the way, that righteousness produced in me by God is called fruit in the Bible [Galatians], it gives assurance [1 John], it is the mark of the believer [James]. I’m not in any way demeaning our fruit, it is wonderful. But may we not equate it with the righteousness of Christ which is ours forever in our union with Him.)
The shift we often subtly as we live as Christians is from our having Christ’s holiness and Christ’s righteousness by faith to us having our own (though verbally Spirit-enabled) righteousness and holiness. We must not equate these. They are not the same at all. The former is the very essence of our salvation every day, every hour, every moment of the Christian life. The latter is the evidence of a Christian life, not the center of it. To make such a shift can both confuse us and rob us of the wonder of what has been done for us, even after conversion.
Now what? Well, my life appears primarily to be about growing in understanding the gospel. My life is now about constantly holding onto faith, faith which includes the belief that I have that righteousness of Christ. Day by day, moment by moment, I desperately need continued, deepening understanding of the gospel of grace.
God’s righteousness is what I get through faith in Christ (Romans 3:21, Phil 3:9).
As I know the depths of Christ, as I grow in the gospel of grace, I am struck with wonder anew. I desire to walk in every way that reflects that I am sold out, absolutely engaged with, this amazing truth. My faith leads me to act and do because I trust God; when He says a way is best, it is! I become more and more thankful for the imperatives of Scripture, to which I am pulled because of the depth of my excitement in the gospel of Christ.
May the intensely practical, life-changing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you in your Christian walk today and every day.
Saturday morning I was out running in the rain. I’ve been challenged by a friend to try to run a half-marathon. So there I was, slowly shuffling along, getting drenched, enjoying God’s creation.
Well… ok, I wasn’t enjoying the creation too much because I was striving just to keep going: one more step, one more breath. I’m in such terrible shape that I have to stop every 10-15 minutes or so in order to rest. I jog for a bit in my out-of-shape condition, then I am forced to walk, to breathe and recover. “Rest” is when I just can’t strive anymore.
Exhausted runner as the Christian life? (no, this is not me, he is far too fit!)
In one of my rest periods, I was struck by the thought – is my Christian life this way? I strive against my flesh, the world, and the devil; when I just can’t strive anymore, I have to stop to rest. Is that what grace is – when God gives me a break from the struggle of this exhausting life?
The Bible does seem to portray the Christian life as a running race. There is no doubt that our lives on earth involve effort and striving against sin. 1 Corinthians 9:24 refers to the self-control and discipline that we willingly desire to have as we “run in such a way that we may win.” Romans 8:23 proclaims that we “groan within ourselves,” longing for the coming redemption of our body when Christ returns.
But I’m not talking about that “end of life” rest (eschatological rest) here. I’m talking about my poor fitness. My tiredness in my run, my gasping-for-air need for a break before the end. Oh, I look forward so much to the finish, when I will cease from running, have a cold drink, perhaps even collapse to the ground in relief.
But is there any real “rest” during the run?
One line of theological thinking says – No, there is no rest. Struggle defines the Christian life: keep on striving against your sin. Hebrews 12:4 is sometimes brought up: “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.” Look, this thinking goes, you think you’re tired, but you haven’t actually made enough effort yet. Work harder, don’t think about rest. This is what God requires of you.
The main thought of this line of thinking is that God requires you to run. You don’t get rest. Go!
There seems to be some truth here. Sometimes what I need is more personal effort. I can get lazy, and mentally stop before my body really needs to. Perhaps I underestimate the power over sin that has been given to me in Christ.
But this seems to be a focus on running as a tough, barely-holding-on, joyless slog. Is that really the right emphasis?
Is there real “rest” during the run?
Another line of theological thinking – perhaps a better one – sees the question differently. Instead of seeing periods of striving and periods of non-striving, what if the striving came from an underlying experience of rest? What if running was really restful?
In God’s grace, there seems to be support for saying – the jog is restful.
Look at Matthew 11:28, the great invitation of Jesus Christ: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Hmm. That’s my Savior talking. I’ve come to Him; He promises rest right now. I’m weary and heavy laden, so tired of my sin and my struggle. Could it be that my entire metaphor is wrong… that in a real sense my Christian life is about resting in Christ? About really appropriating the rest that He says He gives?
But, you might argue, there are responsibilities and duties and effort in the Christian life! Yes there are. That’s what Christ is speaking about as He continues:
Matthew 11:29-30: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
There’s work going on in my life. But Jesus doesn’t seem to put that work at odds with the rest that He gives to us right now.
I think, at the end of the day, that my problem is me. I don’t think rightly about my Christian life. My wrong thinking is that it is up to me, and about me, and focused on my striving. As I dwell there I get tired. I think that this is hard, this is heavy. I need a break from the effort that God is requiring of me.
What rest to think – my Christian life is about Christ, focused on His work, His finished striving. Because of this fact, I gladly take His yoke, and surrender all authority and direction and my entire life to Him. I strive to keep that unseen fact a reality in my life. This is the yoke of faith. Not focusing on the one more step, but on the One who ran for me.
With that thought – that I have found rest in Christ – I also find that my life is not really filled with the super-effort on my part that I imagined. I’m fully energized and excitedly desiring to help others find this rest as they also run through life. This yoke is easy. This burden is light. Is this not the perspective of Matthew 11?
This perspective gives Hebrews 12 new light. Right after a whole chapter on faith, the author writes, “Fix your eyes on Jesus.. consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:1,3). I should think – Jesus endured such hostility from me, a sinner. And yet He still loves me. What motivation.
Then, v. 4: “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.” No, I have not. But I know Someone who has. In striving against my sin, Jesus shed blood. So I am absolutely secure in Him. And the circumstances that happen to me will not shake me from that knowledge. I won’t think of God as wrathfully judging my sin (which has already been paid for by Christ). I can rest in the yoke of my Savior.
And this gives me rest as I strive against the sin of the world against me, which is the point of v. 4 (it is parallel to v. 3, Jesus bearing up under other’s sin). My difficult experiences don’t drain me – I’m resting in the blood of Christ. This gives me rest because I know that God isn’t whipping me or punishing me but lovingly shaping and molding and teaching me.
A better metaphor, I hope, sees all of jogging as restful. Even through the striving. Jogging is a time to pray, a time to wonder at creation, a time to think on form and a time to have victory. A time to strive, not in a out-of-breath-I-have-nothing-left way, but in the body of one who is supremely fit and able. That’s not just me in a little bit better shape, but in my Savior.
Now if only my physical body would get the message that jogging is restful.
My parents blessed our family with a beautiful new computer for Christmas. The PC runs Vista, which I’ve never had as an operating system before. One interesting little feature is the “computer index” which it assigns your machine. It gives your computer a rating in a variety of different areas, like processor speed, graphics speed, amount of memory, etc, and then gives you an overall rating.
Why this is interesting to me is that the overall rating isn’t actually based on a median of your individual ratings. I’d expected, say, a processor rating of 7, a graphics rating of 3, and a memory rating of 5, so that my overall rating was 5.
High rating + Low rating = Low rating?
Instead, the overall rating is simply your lowest rating. In the example above, my computer would have a rating of 3, because that’s the lowest score. It doesn’t matter that your processor rating was 7; it focuses on the lowest rating.
It makes sense, in a performance sort of way. It echoes what my collegiate athletics coach used to say to our rowing team: “You’re only as fast as your slowest man.” If you have something hindering you, everything else screeches to a halt until that hindrance is improved.
So here’s the question that comes to mind: is this the Christian life?
I’m tempted to at least concede that I usually think this way. When I’m struggling with an area, that’s what I focus in on, that’s how I “rate” how I’m doing as a Christian. If I’m struggling with anger in one area, I forget about the fruit of love or kindness or patience and just focus in on my inability to have victory over my anger.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. One godly saint I know, who spends his life on good works and humble living (I know, I know, externals, but still), recently confessed his lack of assurance and struggle because he is not a good evangelist. Whether the issue is stumbling in dieting, a wayward child, an anger issue, or marital conflict, we seem to find our focus in our failures.
Discouragement is one result; even in mature Christians who have much fruit, difficulty in a particular area can seem to stop us in our tracks, rob our assurance, make every other fruit of little consequence.
I’m thinking that this performance-based Windows Vista model is not a good one for me as a believer, though I tend to drift there.
I’m not suggesting that ongoing sin is inconsequential (it’s not), nor am I suggesting that you can just jaunt along in sin uncaringly (sin should grieve the Christian, if you don’t care then you aren’t understanding your relationship with Christ).
My thinking of my walk with Christ and in Christ may be better seen by taking a step back from the tree of my failure and seeing the forest of my life. For example, in Galatians 5:22, the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Should I not praise God for joy, kindness, and gentleness that the Spirit works through me (wonder!) as well as working on the patience that I don’t yet seem to have?
It leads me to think that perhaps some of my sin-focus (and certainly my discouragement because of it) is actually pride. Do I require perfection to prove something to myself? To other people? To God?
Rather than a lowest common denominator approach, perhaps I really should be training my mind and heart in highest common denominator thinking. Because my righteousness, my adoption, my inheritance, and all that I am are really as a result of that highest common denominator: Jesus Christ. My faith (also a gift) in Him is what will allow me to stand forever, united with Him.
As Paul writes in Ephesians:
Ephesians 3:17-19: So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Filled up to all the fullness of God; that sounds like a pretty high rating; that rating comes as Christ dwells in our hearts through faith, and we comprehend the incredible depth of the love of Christ.
Such amazing grace! May we marvel that He produces anything good in us at all!
As I’ve grown older, my appreciation for the sovereignty of God has grown. There are so many details in life that I can’t control; I’m thankful that I know a God who can. My two little daughters’ growth and safety, the tires on my car staying inflated, my heart beating – there is a never-ending list of all the details, big and small, that keep my world turning.
I’ve always had a sense of God’s hand in my conversion. Scripture is so crystal clear on His saving of an utterly dead me. It’s not the focus of this post, but Ephesians 2 says it well: “and you were cold-, stone-, rotting-dead” (my adjectives), but then God “made us alive together with Christ.” Though many do struggle with election, my status prior to God’s regenerative work in me has never seemed to be in question. Dead, and thus unable.
What I did fall into for many years was a pushing aside of His sovereignty – and thus, my utter dependence on Him – in the rest of my Christian life, post-conversion. I fell right into moral self-determinism (hmm… is that a word?), meaning that I thanked God for clearing my sin and saving my soul and went about the work of being as good as I could, having a dependable character with which I could stand before my God.
All my effort and straining... and the bridge of my life still collapses.
When I sinned, I urged myself to try harder, because sin’s power had been broken and I simply needed now to apply effort, and I could be an overcomer. I could have victory.
“Jesus, I can follow you!” I was saying. “You’ve saved me, I know I can! I’ll try harder! I’ll prove myself to you!”
I realize now that I sound a bit like Peter in Luke 22:34: “With you, Jesus, I am ready for prison and death!” Right, Peter. Genuine intentions, heartfelt attitude, wrong object of faith. We all know the story – Jesus tells Peter he’ll deny Christ three times, and Peter proceeds to do just that.
Peter – though a believer – was trusting in his effort and his sincerity and his character, and not trusting entirely in Christ.
It takes that failure, that horrible sin of Peter’s threefold, emphatic denial of Christ, to drive home his inability, his own lack of character, his utter dependence on Christ for the day-by-day, moment-by-moment living he will do on earth. Even as a believer, he slipped into pride so quickly.
I wonder if my failure, my sin, is allowed by my sovereign God to help me learn, to teach me that my only hope is in Christ. That seems to be what is going on in Luke 22. Jesus prays for Peter – but what the Lord prays is not protection for Peter, that he won’t fail or sin. Rather, He prays that Peter’s faith won’t fail in the midst of his sin. This is God’s Son praying – it is a sure thing. So Christ tells Peter, “When you return…” Wow. Sovereign God, allowing Peter’s failure, keeping Peter’s faith through it by the power of prayer.
Jesus doesn’t just do that for Peter. He is constantly praying for me – after salvation. Hebrews 7:25 says of our High Priest, “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”
That’s my Savior. Able to save to the uttermost. Even through failure and sin. Because, like with Peter, Christ is making intercession for my faith, that it may not fail.
I am so dependent, moment by moment, on the intercession of my Savior. May I truly learn that this day, this month, this year as I enjoy the blessings of His grace. Only by faith. Only by grace.
For more on this whole topic, I really recommend a fantastic little book called When We Get It Wrong, by Dominic Smart. He goes into discipleship through the life of Peter, and it has really stimulated me to lean on my Savior in my life-learning of Him. That’s not to imply that I don’t strive with great effort at obedience — but my security is found not in my character or perceived strength, but in the steadfast surety of my Savior’s prayers.
Finally, after many days of learning about such exciting concepts as cascading style sheets and hypertext markup language, an actual site has been born. This is it — the very first entry of a site entirely devoted to the radical, wondrous, exciting, overwhelming, all-encompassing Grace of our Savior, Jesus Christ! A few more adjectives are no doubt in order, but hopefully the point is made. Grace amazing, to you and me.
Everywhere I turn these days, I am struck by the ongoing grace of God in the world around me. Every page of God’s Word rings with grace; love worked out in the body shines forth grace; from marriage, to parenting, to work, to enjoyment of the creation, every day is filled with the grace of God. Hopefully in the days ahead we’ll get to explore more fully how grace impacts the Christian life; impacts not only in the moment of salvation, but every moment afterward.
One of the least-known lines of John Newton’s famous Amazing Grace reads:
The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures.
How fantastic a thought, that the Lord will my shield and portion be for as long as my life lasts. Perhaps Psalm 84:11 is in mind, where the sons of Korah proclaim that “the Lord God is a sun and a shield; the Lord gives grace and glory; no good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.”
The Lord is the sun for Christians… all light, all sustenance, everything comes from Him. The Lord is a shield for Christians… protection, help, safety. The Lord gives grace and glory (interesting connection, the culmination of grace is glory), and gives us all good things (hmm… not necessarily what we’d call good, but His best for us!).
We could just stop right there and bask in the wonder of what we’ve been given, except that Psalm 84:11 ends with a (possibly) disturbing phrase: “from those who walk uprightly.” Doesn’t this mean that if you do the right actions, then God will give you what you want? Doesn’t this fly right in the face of Amazing Grace and grace and glory and shields and portions?
Right away we are into the very reason for this site: grace, grace alone, after salvation. Because “he who walks uprightly” can only be said of you, or of me, inasmuch as we are united with the Righteous One, Jesus Christ. So our works, whether before or after salvation, are not what qualify the Christian as one of “those who walk uprightly.” No, rather that amazing phrase applies to us because we have “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ” (Romans 3:22).
That’s alot to chew on. Named among the righteous in Psalms only by association with Christ, and not by my ongoing efforts (though I make them) to be an upstanding, moral person.
But that’s my faith. And yours too. Amazing Grace, my whole life long. All glory, praise, and honor to Jesus Christ my Lord!
Just a quick thought stimulated by a recent book by Tim Keller (The Reason for God) that our church is reading in a men’s group.
