I had a revelation today with my bouts of disobedience and it seems to have been confirmed by Romans 4. As of late, I have not had a steady quiet time, I have not sought to get into a routine, and many times, have abandoned my time of “study” (I use that word loosely) for something more fun. Through this, I believe the Lord is showing me just how bad my legalism is. He is showing me that I am just as justified in his sight if I go off and do something bad or if I sit and study my Bible. Naturally, if I do something bad, I need to confess it as sin and not do it again, but the fact that I can’t earn my salvation is a burden that needs to come off my shoulders and I thing I need not condemn myself over. Because of my laziness, the Lord has brought me down the long arduous path of me just not doing anything to show me that he is still in control and still guiding me as always. I’m still having a hard time putting all this into words and grasping it because it doesn’t make sense. How can God give us his grace, freely, when we constantly sin and fail him?

Lets begin our journey by going to Romans 4:13ff.  There we see that Abraham was given a promise, not based on his obedience, but on his right relationship with God through faith. Abraham was responsible for something. He was responsible for keeping up his faith, right? He remained unwavered in his hope in the promise. Paul says he actual grew stronger in his faith, or his belief in the promise, so that God received glory from it. God received glory more by Abraham’s faith than by obedience. What did he do to maintain this belief, this right relationship with God? I suppose he never allowed himself to doubt it (though I suppose if a mysterious voice from the sky talked to me, I say I’d never doubt it, but then would I second guess myself and think it was all in my head?). I’m sure he was ridiculed for it, leaving everything he knew to go to a foreign land. It seems though, each step of faith resulted in clear evidence of God’s existence and God’s promise to keep his word. The more Abraham continued to be obedient through faith, the greater God revealed himself to him. So, if that’s the case, then faith drives our obedience, not fear of condemnation driving our obedience. But why do we fear condemnation?

We hold ourselves up to our own standards. We are much harder on ourselves than God is. We grew up hearing nothing but hellfire and brimstone and think that if we don’t obey, we’re going to taste first hand what’s that’s like. However, that is one of Satan’s greatest deceptions. In doing this, Satan has kept us from seeing God’s amazing grace. We think it doesn’t exist. We see a wrathful, vengeful God, and yet, if we look closely, his grace overshadows all of his acts, even in the Old Testament. The fact is, God is not going to punish us for failing to meet his standards. If this were the case, we would be so beat up, bruised and bloody that we wouldn’t be able to function. Will we be held accountable to God’s judgments in the end, yes, but not right now, per se. If we fail, it’s because we know little about the grace that has been extended to us by God’s Son. Jesus bore the penalty for our sins, not us. Jesus took the condemnation of God for us. Jesus became beat up, bruised and bloody, for us! What we get, we don’t deserve, to be sure, “but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love which he loved us.” (Eph 2:4) Just read Ephesians 2, it reinforces everything I’m saying here, almost verbatim. God has given us this free gift to give freely to others. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” Not works of our own accord, but works which he has laid out before us to strengthen our faith and bring us into closer dependence on him for the “immeasurable riches of his grace.” If we try to do any of this on our own, we fail. But why would we want to do any of this on our own if God’s grace and power is what is promised to us?

So now we have the theology, how do we apply this in our daily life? First of all, just like for Abraham, it is a choice as to whether we believe God and his word or we believe Satan and his lies he puts in our head. Logic will not comfort you in this, it takes faith. Logic says this is madness, but faith says this is the greatness of God’s grace he has promised me. Second, take baby steps. If you fear witnessing, don’t go out and try to save everyone you work with. Create a relationship with them first, trust God to give you the grace in the little things so that when you’re presented with a bigger need for faith, you will be firmly supplied with smaller recollections of God’s faithfulness. Third, meditate on these truths constantly. This will take lots of effort, because the world and it’s troubles will seek to drown out God’s words, so you must have a time, at least once in your day where you sit down and remember these truths so that you will act in faith and not hostility. And finally, don’t beat yourself up when you fail. God knows you’re going to fail before you do so don’t think you’re taking him by surprise. When you fail, let that be a reminder of these truths and let God’s promise be renewed in your mind so that the next time you will have confidence that God is going to be faithful in helping you overcome your struggle. This will take away the fear of failure and it will lose it’s sting and grip on you because you know that God does not condemn, so why should you condemn yourself.  If you’re reading these words, they are calling you to action, will you respond?

Why work?  Isn’t God the one who works?  If we join God in his work, we are still the ones calling the shots.  If we go out and do our own work, God is not in it.  So how do we go about doing the Lord’s work?  Clearly this is a Calvinist problem and not Arminian.  Most Arminians don’t struggle with this as much because of their semi-Pelagian backgrounds in thinking that God blesses them more because they work.

We see these two positions in the Bible, Romans 4:4-8 praises the one who has faith and does not work for gain. James 2:14-26 seems to say the opposite that faith without works is dead.  However, as me must always do, we must look to the context.  Paul, in Romans, is referring to those who work to earn their reward.  We know that God’s grace is given to us only by faith (Galatians 3).  However, James, being the more practical preacher that he is, corrects those lazy people like me who think that we don’t have to work because we are already justified by faith.  James says if we truly have faith, it will compel us to do good works.  And properly applied, those works won’t be to glorify ourselves and gain a reward (since we already have a reward), it will be to glorify Jesus because he is ultimately worth every ounce of our effort and when we do this kind of work, we will be ultimately satisfied.

Here’s how this works.  As believers, the Lord gives us the desire to do his work.  As we do this work, motivated by the desire to glorify God, we will receive God’s grace to empower us to do his work, and God will richly bless our work.  Because of the joy and satisfaction this brings, we will want to do more work and involve ourselves all the more in doing all that God has desired for us to do.  All this is powered by our faith that God will do as he says and give us his Spirit to empower us to do all he has commanded.

It’s a perfect cycle: desire to do God’s will as given to us by the Spirit, our obedience in doing God’s will empowered by the Spirit and the faith God has worked in us, then joy and satisfaction in completing God’s will which increases our faith and empowers us to do God’s will all the more.

That’s the ideal situation, but unfortunately, its not what usually happens.  As believers, God still gives us a desire to do his work, but we usually lack the faith to carry it out.  We look at what God has told us to do and get scared and don’t trust God to provide for us or empower us as his Word says.  When this happens, we become disobedient.  The litmus test that we are on the wrong track as we try to work is that it becomes a drudgery and painful and all joy is sapped from doing it.  The pain and drudgery is meant to bring us to repentance and realize our dependence and need for Christ to help us do what he has called us to do.

Here’s how I came to understand this.  For example, I am having a hard time studying God’s word.  It’s not because God is not going before me and not because I don’t have a direction to go, its because I have been disobedient and the painfulness of study is what God is using to get my attention.  To obey requires faith.  We can’t see what God has commanded us to do will work, so we have to depend on him for everything by faith.

Breaking the cycle of disobedience is never easy.  Usually its because our disobedience has become a habit and second, because there is another sin in our life that caused us to become disobedient in the first place.  For me, its a fear of man.  I have to have man’s approval and when I fear that I may not get it or that I may make a fool of myself, I won’t do anything.  It may be different for other people, but whatever it is, we must come to grips with it and defeat it through the power of God’s word and encouragement and help from others.  Make a conscious effort to overcome whatever fear is keeping you from becoming obedient.  I leave you with this quote, not necessarily by a Christian, but when applied to Christianity, becomes a powerful statement, especially when it is understood that our strength comes from the Lord.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop and look fear in the face. The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it. You must make yourself succeed every time.  You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Lately, I have been confused with Romans 7-8 until I realized that Paul was talking about his two natures, his sinful flesh and his spirit filled mind. He describes them always at constant battle because he says that when he longs to do good, evil lies close at hand (Romans 7:21). So he praises God who is the only one who can deliver him from this body of sin.

Then in chapter 8, he goes on to say how the Spirit helps us. First he says that if we set our minds on the flesh, we will die, but if on the Spirit, it is life and peace. For if we allow our minds to linger on fleshly worldly pursuits, we will not be able to please God. But, he says that the same spirit that was in Christ is in us and because of that he will give life to our dead in sin bodies. But my favorite part is verse 13. It says that if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live! We must therefore do everything by the Spirit. Paul goes on to show some other amazing things, but this is what I want us to see.

So how does one live by the Spirit?  Well, we first have to acknowledge that his Spirit lives in us. We know this every time we make a choice to do something. We can either do what we think is more fun, or what is more spiritually satisfying. That’s never how it seems to us at the time, however.  It’s more like, do what is exciting and fulfilling or do what is boring and condemning. That’s why we must rely on the Spirit to show us the truth behind the lie of our sneaky selves. We have to realize that the boring and stupid choice, at first, is almost always going to be the Spirit’s prompting to help us put to death our flesh.  The Spirit is just trying to reveal to us the truth behind the choices. Too often we just want to justify it and say that what the Spirit is telling us is a lie, but that’s because we have made it too much of a habit of doing so. We have to realize he’s doing everything possible to get us to choose life and peace over death, but he’s not going to choose for us. Lord help us more to see you more clearly and shed the blinders to come off our eyes!

Romans 8:1 tells us that there is no condemnation for those in Christ. Paul says this right after he gets through telling us he struggles with longing to be obedient and yet his flesh is always there trying to prevent him. The order struck me as strange, but I think the reason this is so is because Paul knows that we will constantly be battling the flesh and its desires and that we will give into those desires at times. When we do, he doesn’t want us to beat ourselves up and give further opportunity to the devil to come in and have his way with us. If we at that time confess our sins and repent of that which Christ commanded us to do (or not do), then there should be no cause for us to beat ourselves up. I know I struggle with this more because I am somewhat of a perfectionist. Added to this is the fact that I know God is too in relation to sin. Couple those together and every time I give into my fleshly desires, I feel shame and guilt and think I am no longer able to be effective for God that day.

However, I just realized that this is very similar to the way my wife reacts when she screws up. We’ll be having a great time and she’ll get on to me for something and then realize she shouldn’t have done so and apologize and then beat herself up and say the whole night is ruined. However, from my end, I’m just so thankful that she realized she acted incorrectly and the second she apologized, I was overjoyed and forgave her instantly, even if its something she does all the time.

So is the case with God.  When we sin, it automatically separates us from God (making it harder to seek forgiveness), but if we ask him for forgiveness, there should be no false feelings of guilt and shame because we should know that we have been forgiven. As long as we are sincere in our seeking forgiveness and desire to repent, from my example above, I see no reason why he shouldn’t be overjoyed to see us move on and be greateful for his grace.

Think about the implications. If I sin, realize it, and seek forgiveness and still feel guilt and shame, how will that keep me from sinning again? Won’t that just heap more and more condemnation on myself? So it’s really me who is doing the heaping, not God. But if I sin, seek God’s forgiveness and seek to repent, I should realize that I am forgiven and go and sin no more and be overjoyed that I have been graciously forgiven! In essence, I should feel elated that I am no longer condemned and give glory to God because of his grace. I should however realize that I should not go on sinning for then God would not be so willing to forgive me if I sinned on purpose.

I had planned on this summer being a summer of great theological learning.  I was hoping to read a lot of great books and study my Bible and really get spiritually charged for this next year of seminary.  Needless to say, I think I’m about as unspiritual as I’ve ever been.  I don’t pray, read my Bible, or pretty much anything else.  I do play an awful lot on this computer, but as always, have very little to show for it.

So, I was sitting here reflecting on my sins when I came to this conclusion; I’m living life with no direction, as if who cares what tomorrow may bring. I’m up here wasting precious time and money (both of which I don’t have) just so I can sit here on the computer and do only that which is “fun”.  Its not like I don’t have the motivation. I downloaded my syllabi today and upon reading it, was very excited about what the profs hope to teach us. But if I look at it realistically, I’m not going to do the work necessary to achieve their goal, I’m only going to do enough to get by because what I want to do is have fun and enjoy life and school work is only going to get in the way.

So what’s it going to take to change me from this? I don’t care about prayer or Bible study because that’s just not fun (or so it seems). I don’t really want to read other Christian books because that’s boring, will put me to sleep, and I’ll never remember what it is I’ve just read. So that’s the excuses, but that’s what I really need. Trying to do this on my own power will accomplish nothing, or so the Bible says. If I tried on my own, I’d be doing it according to the flesh, but I’m promised that if I seek to put to death the deeds of the flesh, the Spirit will help me (cf. Rom 8:13).

So really what it seems like I need to do is from the moment I wake up, start asking God what he would have me to do. But wait a minute, is he really trust worthy? He’s going to ask me to do something stupid and I’m going to make a fool of myself and its going to be just one big mess. But wait, I thought I had all this faith! Sure, I got a lot of sideline faith, but put me in the game and I’m out like a light. I’ve got to learn to depend on God, his word, and discern what it is he’s telling me to do. I’ve got to memorize his word so that in the heat of battle when doubt and fear are strongest, I have his word to lean on and strengthen me. As it is now, I don’t need him, his word, or his Spirit because I’m not doing anything but living for myself.  So how do I put this into consistent practise?

To answer yesterday’s post about faith, we need to make some comparisons. Most of us know the great debate between the faith of Paul and that of James. I firmly believe that there is no contradiction between their messages, but I want to examine the way they work themselves out practically.

Paul’s Faith

Paul wrote in Romans about the free gift of grace for those who had faith in Christ. Amen! That is most definitely true, but what that tends to make us think, especially in our churches, is that there’s nothing we need to really do, except have faith, to receive God’s grace. It is this grace that causes the problem. We settle for a greatly diminished idea of grace than what Paul was referring to. Our concept of grace is: a roof over our heads, food on the table, good weather, or whatever will give us the most pleasure. We use grace cheaply to use it to attain whatever brings us what we want. Paul’s idea of grace was that which was needed to get him through each and every hour of the day. I believe that if the fear of persecution or death was looming over us, our faith would take on a radically different shape. I fear that most of us would even lose our “faith,” if they even had it at all.

James’ Faith

James’ faith addressed these issues and made it impossible to passively have faith and not have any outward signs of fruit. James 2:18 says: But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. James’ faith was such that it propelled him to greater works. However, one must be cautious not to fall into the trap of legalism and do works to earn favor with God. The proper way of looking at it is to have faith in God’s sustaining grace and out of the overflow of that, do good works.

Conclusion

A lot of you seminary folk have the opposite problem as I do. I over analyze a situation to death that when it finally comes time to step forward in faith, I choke because I am so afraid of screwing up and saying something that will cause them to think poorly of me. I realize this may be more of a fear of man type of problem, but it ultimately comes down to not having the faith of James. I always thought that all that was needed was Paul’s faith, and that would at least get me to heaven. But that’s only half of the puzzle, the other half is having the faith to go forward in obedience, pushing past the temporary fear of the unknown, and doing it all for the glory of God! When I start to care more about God’s glory, this fear will be defeated and I will have the faith that believes AND the faith that does!

I got to thinking about what it means to be dependent on God for our life.  I am not dependent on God for anything unless I actually step out in faithful obedience.  I could say, “I’m going to depend upon God to get me out of this slump and open my mouth to start talking to people and never be worried about what others think of me again.”  I could honestly believe that, but that will never happen if I just sit here wait on a “stirring of the waters.”  The lame people of Jesus’ time used to do that and wait for the waters to be stirred, with obviously nothing happening (John 5:3-9).  However, when Jesus told the man to get up and walk, he was healed.  We have all been “healed” and have been commanded by Jesus to get up and walk and do as he commanded us, but we seem to forget that or either doubt it.  I think we are so wrapped up in ourselves that unless we see a visible sign, we just justify it away in our minds.  What we need is faith in what he has told us.  We can have all the will power and attempts at self motivation in the world, but that’s not dependence upon anyone but ourselves.  When we exercise faith in what God has promised, we depend upon his grace to get us through whatever he’s telling us.  If it’s get up and take our mat, even though I’ve been lame all my life, if Jesus commanded it, who am I to question it?  I need to get up and watch God shower me with his grace and then I will have the power to do above and beyond what I never thought possible.  All my attempts at doing what God has commanded will end up fruitless and I will eternally beat myself up for not doing it.  But if I step out in faith and realize there is nothing in me that is able to do this great thing, he will abundantly bless me and empower me to do the thing he commanded.  So, how do I get that faith?

Since writing my previous post, I found my old journal, one I started back around 2004.  My life back then was very similar to what it is now.  I had just graduated college and was waiting for my family’s business to get started, so there was about 9 months of doing nothing, sitting at my parents house, playing on the computer.  The only difference now is that I’m married and I only have 3 months of solitude to get ready for the Fall.  I was originally thinking about getting a summer job, but my wife is having surgery in July and we’re moving in a couple of weeks and so I figured this was a good time to build a new a spiritual foundation that will hopefully carry me through seminary.  Needless to say, its hard to start something that doesn’t come naturally!

So, back to my point.  I was reading some entries from that time period and ran across something that was incredibly profound.  I said something like: When I’m most busy, I focus less on myself and more on God’s sustaining grace, but when I’m alone, I focus on myself, complicate things, and analyze myself to the point of doing nothing.  I was both shocked and humbled.  Being an engineer, I love to analyze things.  Apparently, at least on myself, that’s all I do is analyze, there’s no “do”.  So, if you couple this with my last post, no matter how I feel at the time (because if all we did was “feel” like doing something, we wouldn’t do very much at all), I must push through it and “do” something.

So to conclude, my wife seems to be going through a similar dry season and she told me something like this: If we truly loved the Lord, we would want to do all sorts of things for him.  Ouch!

Ok, I’m going to let you in on a little secret – seminary students struggle with their faith.  You may think, how can that be, you’re learning about God?  Well, there’s two major reasons.  One, we neglect true intimate time, with our heart engaged, in worship and Bible study.  Second, we get so puffed up with Biblical knowledge that we don’t actually apply it and allow it to humble us.  This of course doesn’t characterize all of us, so I may be preaching to the choir, but it has happened to me.   For me, there is a third reason.  I have too many distractions that give me much greater enjoyment than studying my Bible.  Truth is, I hate to study, that’s why I’m a horrible student, however, I love to research something that interests me.  So here’s the big question, how do I make Bible study interesting?

As alluded to in the title, discipline is the answer.  You may think that its not because it sounds boring and monotonous, but let me try to convince you.  If I wanted to compete in the greatest of all sporting events, the Olympics, I couldn’t just walk out there, out of shape as I am, and compete and expect to win the gold.  Yet that’s exactly how I approach the Christian life.  Its the mentality that if it doesn’t come easy, I don’t want it.  So how do I discipline myself?  The same way you would if you wanted to win the gold medal in track.  First you start out small, actually do some running.  Its going to be sheer torture at first, but you’ve got to be determined and convinced that the end result is worth it, and in the Christian life, it is most definitely worth it!  I’ve been told that those who start to run for exercise hate it at first, but after they stick with it for awhile, they can’t get enough of it.  So it will be with our Christian walk, its going to seem legalistic and boring and hard at first, but if we continually seek to engage our heart in meaningful study and seek to keep God’s word fresh in our minds, we will inevitably form a habit that will become addictive and will cause us to want to go deeper in our study.

So what does this look like for you?  Only you can figure that out.  There are some basic principles that determine if you’re on the right track, here are a few:

• Do whatever it takes to engage the heart.  Anyone can read the Bible for years and never really get any closer to God because all you’re doing is checking off your to-do list.
• Set a predetermined, uninterrupted time where you can set your mind on God and only God.  If something tries to vie for that time, switch times or squelch it out.
• Find someone or do something to help you stay accountable to both the above.  Its impossible to motivate ourselves consistently, especially at first.  Satan would love to either disrupt our set time or cause us to think about something other than God to keep us from engaging the heart.  By finding someone to hold you accountable, you can let them into your life and vise versa, which is a great thing anyway.

I’m going to be honest, I’ve been trying to do this for years and have not been successful, but I’ve always failed at one of the three points above.  This post is my motivation and promise to myself to start this journey afresh.  Anyone jump in and hold me accountable and I’ll do my best to reciprocate.

So I was translating Romans 5:1-11 (I only got to v.5 because I got the great idea to start this blog) and just saw some incredible things jump off the page that I had to write it down.  You see, lately the Lord has been showing me a lot about condemnation (and how much of it I do to myself) and what God’s grace really looks like.  Well, these few verses bring this home in a major way.  Take just v.1-2:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  (ESV)

To be justified means we are made right with God (he no longer sees our sin) and he does this by the faith he works in us.  And it’s by our faith, not our works, that we can come to God and obtain peace!  And greater still, it is by this faith that we obtain his amazing grace through which we are enabled to rejoice in the hope we have in our Heavenly Father!  I’m also in the process of reading John Piper’s Faith in Future Grace that talks directly about this.  It is our hope in God’s future promise of grace that should motivate us to leave our sin behind and chase after Him with all our hearts!  And here’s what kills this constant condemning of myself: God’s grace is given to us not because of anything I do, but just because of who I am!  I am one of God’s children and he longs to give me the greatest gifts in the world, and in return, I long to give Him all the praise and glory my little heart can muster.

So next time you decide to condemn yourself and think you can never do any better, remember these verses and seek God’s forgiveness, realize you have been forgiven, seek the peace He will give you and praise Him for it!