Surrender to grace

Over at Idle Musings today, the title of James' post, "Be a Loser," reminded me of the old Steve Taylor song, "Jesus is for Losers." :) But that's not the point of this post.

James quotes from a Christianity Today article (incidentally written by a Canadian singer/songwriter who I haven't heard about in a long time, Carolyn Arends) that has to do with Jacob wrestling with God, and God dislocating Jacob's hip, and Jacob getting a blessing out of the ordeal. The article uses this story to talk about our need to stop "living in our own resources" and instead rest "in the middle of God's goodness, power and provision." For the full gist, see the article that is linked to in James' post.

What I personally wanted to highlight was James' "idle musing" about all of this:

Of course, my question is always, "Why are you depending on your own strength in the first place?" One of the basic tenets of Christianity is we can't do it, we need God to do it for us, so why do we continue to struggle and strive and generally exhaust ourselves for nothing? Why not just surrender and let God have his way with us from the start?

As I read this I began thinking about how quickly Christians turn from grace, and God's strength, to their own strength and resources. Take these two hypothetical, pretend spiritual journal entries, that may just be more based in reality that we might think:

Day 1: I'm saved by the precious grace of God! I'm free! I was weak, and a sinner, but now in the Lord, and in Him alone, I find my strength, righteousness and peace! Woo hoo!

...

Day 366: I'm tired. I feel so much guilt. What a heavy burden. I don't know how much longer I can do this.

The amount of days between those two entries will of course vary from person to person (perhaps for some it will be weeks, months or years), but the point is that somewhere between the first entry above, and the last one, some very important things changed. Grace seems to have disappeared from the picture. Dependence upon God's strength is gone. It's been replaced by self-dependence. It's been replaced by a fleshly struggle to try to maintain the Christian life.

Whereas in Christ we were supposed to have our heavy burdens lifted, and replaced with an easy yoke and a light burden, the experience of many is just the opposite. It seems that in their Christian experience they put on even heavier burdens than they had in the first place, and instead of relaxing in the yoke with Jesus, they're trying to pull the heavy load themselves.

We seem to leave Grace behind... thinking it was only for Day 1, when we were born again. My, how we've promoted a cheap and weak gospel! We've led people to God through grace, but after that it's seemingly all up to us!

Grace is the essence of the Christian life. Jesus is grace personified. You can't separate grace from Jesus. You can't have a "Christian life" in any way, shape or form apart from Jesus or apart from grace. When you were saved on Day 1 through nothing less than God's grace, that grace remained with you, and remains with you forever! His strength, His righteousness, His peace, His joy, His... everything... is yours by grace, and grace alone. Surrender to it.

Waiting - Part 2

In Part 1 I mentioned just a few biblical characters (real people) out of a whole host of people who have had to wait long amounts of time for prayers to be answered, promises/desires to be fulfilled, visions to come to pass, etc. Sometimes people have waited patiently. But so many other times, while they've been people who knew of God's faithfulness and integrity, they've also had fleshly (non faith-filled) times of uncertainty and/or impatience and have tried to take things into their own hands.

I can certainly relate in every way. Beginning here in Part 2 I have in mind some things from my own life in which I've waited faithfully at times and have been impatient and faithless at other times. I'll start with my relationship with my wife.

From the ages of about 16 to 22, I had many short-term relationships. I was always serious, albeit in a young and naive way, in the relationships. I was truly looking for someone to be with for the rest of my life. Two or three times along the way, in my late teens and early 20's, I thought I had found "the one." But obviously none of those relationships worked out. I was very impatient during those years as I wondered if I'd ever find someone. How much heartache I could've saved myself and others if I'd just been patient! Easier said than done, of course, especially when you're not trusting God.

Then in 1992 my "serious" walk with Jesus began. I met Tracey and her friends that summer. I got to know them over the course of several months and finally I was going to ask Tracey out. I thought finally I had met a nice Christian woman and maybe this could be "the one." It took me three weeks (an eternity) for me to work up the courage to ask her out. On the day that I was going over to her house to ask her out, I went over to one of our mutual friends' house - and he told me that he had just asked her out! They ended up dating for several months. I was downhearted - but yet this is something that aided in bringing me closer to my Jesus. In my heart I said that I'll step aside, and I'll wait and see what happens. I'll be happy for them no matter what happens and I'll continue on with my life. I was stunned at how well I took it all. But my walk with Christ was still new and I began to see that He was doing this work in me.

However, it wasn't all peachy. During the 'waiting,' I got myself into a bad relationship. Call it my Abram experience, taking things into my own hands. I knew it was bad right from the start, but I stayed and hoped it would work out. After a while, I didn't know what to do - and that's when I took the trip to Canada. My head was cleared while there, and I came back and ended the relationship. At the same time, Tracey's boyfriend also broke up with her. After a few more months had passed and we knew neither of us were on the rebound anymore, we began dating.

After all of that waiting, we were finally together. Or not. :) On this blog I've shared some of our past relationship problems, and I won't get into them here, but going back to the time we dated I had doubts about the two of us. All of that waiting... and then when it came to pass I wasn't sure if it was right! We broke up twice, but then finally got engaged in 1995 and were married in 1996. We've worked through so many things since then, and I can say today that there are no regrets, no doubts! And I will say that going through all of that - even back to the dating years - has only served to draw us closer to Jesus and stronger in our marriage.

Here's the thing. We are Christians. We have become partakers of the divine nature. We have become new creations. We have grown in faith and trust. We have the Spirit of God living in us!

But yet from time to time we've made fleshly choices. Sometimes it's caused a lot of heartache and grief. Sometimes we've been impatient when it comes to growing in our love for each other. Sometimes we've had doubts. Sometimes we've had anger. We've looked around at the various "perfect Christian couples," who are mostly putting on an act in public, as if they always see eye to eye and never argue or disagree, and we most certainly don't live up to that standard!

BUT... we've also had times of great faith, times of great joy, times of growing in trust, times of knowing that while we're seemingly completely different people, there are many great things about us being together for life. It has often been in the waiting that many of our issues have been worked out in our hearts. Not that I want to celebrate the fleshly things we've done in our relationship, but through it all we've found God to be faithful to us.

Some say it's love that keeps a marriage strong. Some say it's commitment. But I want to tell you that I know for sure that if it were up to my own resolve, or if it had been left up to my own worked-up love or commitment, it would have been a failed marriage. I hate admitting that but yet at the same time I glory in it because it has helped me to see that not only is it by GRACE that we are saved, but it is by grace that God keeps us! In our weakness He is strong and in our lack of commitment and trust, He remains committed and faithful to us. What I'm saying is that I love and am committed to Tracey more than ever, but it's been due to an obvious work of the Spirit - who we are One with - and nothing that we've done in our own fleshly strength!

Sometimes things seem so uncertain and painful in the waiting, but an overall picture is being painted and we can't see the whole picture but we know that while it may include lots of little (or big) shadows, it's nevertheless a beautiful and remarkable painting!

Fake it till you make it?

Have you ever heard (or used) the phrase, "fake it till you make it," in regards to the living out of the Christian life? Although I've heard the actual phrase used only a handful of times, I've seen the Christian lifestyle that's represented by the phrase in action all throughout my Christian life. And it's sad, because it's nothing less than a fleshly attempt at living the Christian life.

One of the times I heard the phrase used in a sermon, the pastor was talking about the various family qualities and values that we are to live out as Christians. Loving our spouses, loving our kids, "one anothering" each another, and so on. When we find ourselves falling short in our love relationships with each other, what should we do? According to this pastor, we just "fake it till we make it." :( I was very disheartened to hear that. If we're having a hard time loving and showing appreciation to our spouse, for example, we just fake it till we make it. We go through the motions until we find ourselves genuinely loving our spouse.

I'm sorry, but this totally misses the point of Christianity! It sure may appear right to some, since it's an appeal to us to do good things. But all it really is is a fleshly attempt to do these things. The flesh, no matter how good and wonderful it appears, will never, ever, EVER produce what the Spirit can and does produce in us!

Another time I heard the phrase was in a small group setting. We were talking about the gifts of the Spirit, and "how" to walk in them. (shudder) One man suggested the "fake it till you make it" method. ((double-shudder)) For example, if it's the gift of tongues that's in question, just start muttering some words and eventually it will come. Or whatever the gift, just go through the motions enough, and eventually it will become real.

I'm all for "growing" in our gifts, and in the living out of the Christian life. But not through FAKING it! See, there is absolutely nothing fake about love. If we feel we have to fake love in order to grow in love, then we'll never come to a true living out of a love-life.

I can see why the "fake it till you make it" mentality is so prevalent in the church today (even if the phrase itself isn't used a whole lot). The focus in the church today is behavior modification. Sermons, seminars, meetings, exhortations, articles, radio and TV programs, and so on and so on... all focus on getting us to change our behavior from one way ("bad") to another way ("good"). Do I want to stop doing bad and start doing good? Of course! But you can teach me all you want about what is bad behavior and what is good behavior (what I should stop doing and what I should start doing), and yet you will give me no power whatsoever to change my behavior!

Christ in us - and His grace - is the power to live a godly life. There is nothing fake about Christ in us! But when the constant focus is behavior modification, people will take their eyes off of the One who IS the way, the truth and the life and will always be attempting to change themselves. This constant focus on behavior modification, leaves people with, well, a constant focus on behavior modification! They are deceived into thinking that by focusing on good behavior they're focusing on Christ. But since they're not really looking to Christ and His life that miraculously and abundantly indwells us, but rather are focusing on change, then all that's really left is a life of faking it till they make it.

Growing in true love and true godly behavior doesn't come from attempting or faking love or godly behavior. True love and true godly behavior comes over a period of time as we look to Christ, who is in us, to live His life in us, and it comes as we grow in God's unconditional love.