How should we view our motivation for achieving success in this life? On the one hand, we are told to have faith and God will provide for us, but on the other, we are still required to work and better ourselves. How do we balance these two truths so we don’t end up lazy, apathetic slobs or prideful, arrogant businessmen with no real godly fruit? To start, we need to look at the sermon on the mount. In Matthew 5, Jesus, seeing the crowd that was following him, got on a hillside and began preaching to his followers who were poor and destitute. No doubt, what they were expecting to see was Jesus give them a pep talk on how to overthrow the oppressive Roman government and with him as their leader, march into Jerusalem and take control of the government. Surprisingly, this is not what we see. We see Jesus praising those who are weak and mild and poor, for their suffering and patience will be rewarded in heaven. He encourages them to rejoice and be glad when they are persecuted because it will be worth it in the end.

The entire sermon, which is radically counter-cultural, is a demonstration of our motivations when interacting with others. When we encounter someone who wants to sue us for our money, give him the shirt off your back. If someone hates you and treats you unfairly, humble yourself and go serve them the best you know how and pray that God will open their eyes to see his goodness that you are demonstrating to them. Our goal should to be to make less of ourselves so that God’s love can be seen through us by others. So does this mean we are supposed to be door mats to everyone? Not really. We are not called to be taken advantage of, but this teaching should reflect the attitude of our hearts so that if there is an opportunity for God’s glory to shine through our circumstances, we can be prepared to act accordingly.

So we can read self help books and try to achieve great success in this life, as long as we remain humble, right? Well, what do self help books have that the Bible does not? Isn’t the main focus of self help books is to instill confidence in yourself and teach you to believe that you have the power to do all that your heart desires? Let’s look back at Matthew 5:20, Jesus says “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” That’s pretty intense! The Pharisees had it all, political power, fancy clothing, big houses, respect of the people, etc. How did they get it? They studied God’s commands and knew them backwards and forwards and made all these elaborate schemes to ensure they kept them perfectly. They went to great lengths to follow God’s rules perfectly, but why does Jesus always have bad things to say about them?

Jesus is constantly getting on to the Pharisees, not because of their strict adherence to God’s law, but the lack of understanding of how to go about doing it. The Pharisees used these elaborate plans to keep them from sinning. They created ways to ensure their success, but Jesus criticizes them for pursuing God’s law on their own, apart from him. In John 15:6-7, Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.” Because the Pharisees sought to be successful, because they read self-holiness books, they missed the goal of why they should be holy in the first place. According to John, how do we bear fruit and become successful in God’s economy? By abiding in him. How do we abide in him? Read the Bible and spend time growing in our relationship with him.

The Bible is replete with supporting scriptures:

• 1 Peter 5:6 – Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.
• James 4:6 – But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
• James 4:10 – Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

When we seek to better ourselves apart from God’s plan, we work in all kinds of worldly ideas that do not profit us. If we can better our self by ourselves, why be Christians at all? As Christians, should we expect to have it better than Christ did while he was on this earth? Jesus’ self improvement plan was to be plugged into communication with his Father every single second of the day. Then, because of his obedience, God exalted him on the cross. This may not be our dream for success, but every single one of us ought to pursue death to self each and every day so that in God’s timing and plan, he can exalt us in whatever way he deems best (1 Corinthians 15:31, Galatians 2:20, 5:24). If it’s martyrdom, then may we lead thousands of people to Christ in the process. If it’s to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company, than may we also make sure we lead people to Christ through our testimony and witness. Let’s put all our time and effort in pursuing God and so that by faith, we may receive the richness of his glory. Just like Jesus’ audience on the hill, he is not calling us to be victors in this life according to our definition of victory. Our victory is achieved through abiding in Christ and through our faith in his sustaining grace.

My first steps of analysis consists of where to place the blame. My first place was on the person causing the suffering. I would rack my brain thinking of new and better ways to avoid the trial and seek the comfort I craved, but to no avail. I slowly had to realize that it was unavoidable and not that person’s fault, they couldn’t help it. I next tried to just ignore it, hoping it would go away. I would hunker down all the more and try to go about life as usual, hoping it would just go away, but it wouldn’t. Finally, I turned to God and blamed him for this evil which had beset me. The sovereign Creator of the Universe was allowing this affliction and all he had to do was tell it to stop and it would, but he wouldn’t.

After searching for a solution on my own abilities and strength and exhausting everything I thought would bring the joy and satisfaction I desired, I cried out to God again, admitting my failure and humbling myself before him and seeking his guidance out of this. What he showed me shocked me. I thought I knew all the answers, but I was wrong, I knew nothing. I thought I knew how to bring God the most glory, but instead, I only knew how to bring myself the most glory and hoped God would come on board my plan.

To seek deliverance is self love and not seeking out God’s plan in the trial… We take more pains to be out of affliction than to be sanctified.

I erred in making these assumptions:

• I thought God was punishing me for some disobedience I had done.
• I thought God was against me since I know he is sovereign over everything.
• I thought God is only for us when we are being blessed by good times.
• I thought my primary aim in life is to be happy.

The first thing I learned was that I deserve every bit of suffering and hardship I experienced. I had to come to this understanding the hard way. I rarely get angry, but I was angry, and worse, I was angry at God. I was fed up with my trial and I wanted out. As soon as that thought entered my head, I realized the hopelessness of it. I knew that if I didn’t have God, any slight hope of any future grace was gone. With the great wisdom of my wife, she beat that thought far from me and helped me realize that apart from the grace of God, I would be utterly without hope and have nothing to life for. By God’s grace, he saved me and has given me a good life and if he were to take it all away, I still could not complain because what he has already given me is so much more than I deserve. If all I had was a cardboard box in this world, it would be a glorious gift from our Father for he has saved me from the pit of destruction. The fact that he has chosen to give me more is infinitely more than I deserve and something which I had grown too accustomed. I bought into the lie that to be a Christian, only blessings would come my way. I had to learn that hardship and pain would by my life as a Christian for why should I have more than my Savior? [VERSE]

Second, I had to learn of God’s goodness. I often thought of Job and how God allowed Satan to inflict him with all sorts of calamities. I knew that God was sovereign and that there is nothing in this earth that doesn’t happen without him allowing it. I knew God could take away my afflictions with a word, but he never did. I tried to be charismatic and bind Satan and make him go away. I tried to bargain with God and commit to whatever he wanted if he would only make the suffering pass. I prayed earnestly for deliverance but failed to earnestly seek God’s purpose and plan. Sometimes, to seek deliverance or make “deals” with God is Satan’s plan to delay obedience and turn aside the heart from the present duty which good thing God intends to work into the soul.

I knew just enough theology to be dangerous. I knew that he disciplines us and I knew that he had to be allowing this for some good reason. But what I didn’t see what that God disciplines us for our good and he does it as a loving father would his son. I thought God was punishing me, but instead, he was loving me by getting me to open my eyes and see his loving hand of discipline that will lead me to correction instead of going down the road of destruction. God disciplines those whom he loves, and he is relentless about doing so. He loves me so much that no matter how many diversionary tactics I tried to use, he countered each one and still pursued me.

So what is the purpose of suffering? There are many, but I posit two reasons. To be sanctified and to bring glory to God. To be sanctified is easy to understand, it relates to what we said above about discipline. God loves us and wants us to grow in holiness and trials help us see how impossible it is to live this life on our own and how desperately we need Christ to save us. It could be put this way. Naturally, without any outside influence, our hearts are like rock hard steel. The world and it’s desires and lusts only make it harder. The only way to form steel is to heat it up and melt it. Trials and suffering is the heat God uses to melt our hearts and mold them into that which he desires. Too often we want God to be aligned with our desires, but he has desires for us of his own. We only find joy and satisfaction when we align our desires with his! Ps 37:4

Second, trials are used by God to bring him glory. This is harder to see because of our false assumption that God wants only to bless us with good things. God does want to bless us with good things, but we wrongly think that good things include nice houses, good jobs, and easy living. From God’s perspective, good things include trials and suffering because his goal is to mold us to be more like Christ; our goal is to be more like the world. The way God receives glory through our suffering is completely counter intuitive. When people look on us and know we are suffering and see us with our heads hanging low and living in a depressed state, they understand and take pity on us. When people look on us and know we are suffering but are joyful and upbeat and excited about life, they are confused and unsettled in their minds. They see us and wonder what we have to be joyful about. This then gives us the opportunity to speak about the grace of God and tell of his mighty works. It gives us the opportunity to show the power of God’s Spirit which sustains us and gives us all that we will ever need. We can boast on what God has done for us and how he has given us way more than we deserve. We can blow their minds by showing them that through this trial, we are being made to reflect our Savior more and more.

This type of reaction isn’t instant, in fact, it takes years and years and many trials to perfect, but perfection isn’t the goal. The goal is obedience. We will want to quit and give up, we will want to find joy and peace in other ways, but trial by trial, day by day, we will be made to be more and more like Christ and this is the only thing that will ever bring us the joy and satisfaction we desire. With this attitude, it will be for the sake of joy that we look forward to the next trial and long for the trying times. “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalms 34:18) Therefore let us draw near to God so that these trials may have full effect so that we might radiate without blemish the image of our Savior to others.

Source: External Link

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

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!

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!

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.