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?

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!

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.

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?