We've evolved into a body of believers who don't know what to do or how to do it apart from being told what to do - through reading various biblical instructions, through reading books, through listening to preachers and teachers, and so on. We've evolved from a Spirit-based Life to a performance-based religion. Do we really know God - or who we truly are in Him?
We're so used to equating "doing" with doing teaching - exhortations, methods, principles. In other words, we don't know what to do or how to live unless we're "instructed" on what to do. We've made church that way. We haven't taught identity, but rather "saved by grace, now get to work" - with little or no foundation of where the work really comes from - the life of Christ in us.
And so... what you see coming from me is what I believe is the root of the Christian life. The root is not works. The root is Jesus Himself. The root is grace. The root is our true identity in Christ. The root is all those things intertwined in such a way that they are "one." From the root springs a natural plant that bears natural fruit.
Paul was accused of teaching licentiousness (grace is a license to sin), which is far from what he was doing, so I'm never surprised when the pure message of God's grace, and resting/abiding in Christ is misconstrued by others to mean being couch potatoes. But when the abiding life is lived out, the result that's shown can hardly be said to be the life of a couch potato! However, I wonder if the "doing" is always what the church makes it out to look like!
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