Monday, March 16, 2015

Navigating the pitfalls of obedience

Whenever we take an honest look at how we’re doing with obedience to Jesus’ commands, we tend to go in one of three unhealthy and sinful directions, ultimately not obeying the command at all.

  1. Commonly, we rightly realize that we’re really not doing well obeying Jesus, and we feel a weight of guilt. This guilt is not a bad thing, but it’s what we do with it that matters. Many times, we turn our attention to getting rid of the guilt and appeasing God. We make following Jesus all about us getting rid of guilt and forcing God to love us. What we care about most is feeling better about ourselves, not obeying Jesus as Lord.
Usually, when we do this, we look for the easiest way to fulfill the command. We’re not really concerned to develop a life of obedience to Jesus. We just want to fulfill the minimum requirements of a command, so that we can “get God off our back” and get on with our life. This often means we look for one-time acts we can perform to feel like we did enough, but don’t develop a long-term pattern of joyful obedience and worship.

  1. A second sinful way we respond to an honest look at obedience to Jesus is this: we still rightly realize we’re not doing too well, and we feel guilty about it. Yet because we don’t like feeling guilty, we tell ourselves that following Jesus’ commands isn't really that important because we’re saved by grace and God forgives us for all our sins. And so we don’t feel guilt but we also don’t feel conviction. In doing this, we make light of the cross, as if it cost God nothing to win our salvation. This is called cheap grace.
  1. A third sinful way we respond to Jesus’ commands is that we feel no conviction at all. We think we've got it all down. This usually means we don’t recognize the depths of our sin, and we don’t understand the extent of God’s commands, that they speak to the condition of the heart and mind, and not just outward moral conformity. The truth is, his commands are so wise and penetrating that there should be no end to conviction and repentance and growth.
So how do we take God’s commands seriously, submitting to them for his glory, while keeping ourselves from both legalism and antinomianism (the opposite of legalism: no law). Here are three things to keep in mind:

  1. While we must never make light of Jesus’ commands, we must also never think that our obedience contributes anything to our salvation. We are rescued from sin, death, and hell, and given a new identity as beloved children of God, by what God has done for us through Jesus, and not by anything we can do for him.
  1. When we don’t desire to obey, it isn't all on our backs to conjure up right desires. God not only provides strength sufficient to obey, but changes our desires. Obedience in a certain area may seem impossible, but God is working on our hearts, minds, and wills and nothing is impossible with Him. Often times, obedience feels like doing what we don’t want to do with strength that we don’t’ have. This is exactly where God would have us to teach us to depend on his strength and presence and not on our will power.
  1. Obedience isn't something that we’re going to perfect today, this week, this year, or this lifetime. In our attempts at self-righteousness, we often look for quick-fix good works that make us feel good about ourselves and like we've put God in our debt. But the truth is, we will need God’s grace, mercy, and forgiveness every day of our lives. We should pursue obedience with every effort, while continually looking to the cross as we fail again and again.
Obedience to Jesus was never meant to give us a reason to boast. No matter how mature and faithful we are, all the glory belongs to God. Obedience is a result of his initial saving work in us and of his ongoing conforming of our wills, emotions, and actions by the power of his Holy Spirit in us. Though we must put forth every effort, all the glory and credit goes to God for all growth and faithfulness in our lives.


Wednesday, January 28, 2015

1 community; 1 vision; 1 sentence



A few months ago, I wrote several blog posts outlining the vision for planting a church in the Stanwood-Camano community. Yet as a group of us have begun talking through this vision, and I’ve attempted to share this vision with others, it’s become clear that we need a way to effectively communicate it in a short and easy-to-understand way. A way to succinctly say, “This is who we are and what we’re aiming for as a church; if you find this compelling, come and take part in carrying forth the vision.”

So here it is: four blogs worth of material boiled down into one sentence. I’ve bolded words and phrases that are most important and that probably each need a whole paragraph of explanation. But the purpose of this blog is to keep it short and easily-digestible, and the longer explanations can be found in the previous posts on church planting (see the links on the right).

Our vision is to grow a community of Christ followers in the Stanwood-Camano area in which the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and its implications are clearly taught and consistently applied to every area of life.

So there you have it! Pass it around.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

The great and terrifying love of God



How often we impose our ideas of love onto God! Oh, how we mock his providence and wisdom by insisting that he fit into our small ideas of love. We believe that God is loving only if he meets our demands and expectations. But if God is sovereign over all, holds the future in his hand, and has wisdom that is immeasurably greater than ours, then surely our perspective of the events of our lives is limited. Unless we see what God sees, possess his wisdom, and have his power to carry out that wisdom, our interpretation of situations is faulty. Hence the wise words out of Proverbs: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”

God’s goodness is not dependent on you getting what you want or what you think you need. God’s goodness is not dependent on him answering that one prayer you so desperately want answered. You don’t even know what’s best for you. The proof of God’s goodness is Jesus’ death on the cross.

Do you doubt his goodness? Look to the cross. He may not answer your prayer as you wish. He may not give you the comforts and pleasures that you wish. But he gives you the cross. This means that he gives his presence and protection to those who put their hope in him. Oh, that we would believe that his presence and promises are better than all the lesser desires we want fulfilled!

I’ll let C.S. Lewis sum it up:

“In awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God; you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the ‘lord of terrible aspect,’ is present; not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, not the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work and despotic as a man’s love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes….It is certainly a burden of glory not only beyond our deserts but also, except in rare moments of grace, beyond our desiring.” (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 46-47)

We are discussing this and other attributes of God at community group this week. Join us Sunday at 5 at our place on Camano.