GRACE - A Moment of Blinding Clarity
I had a brief moment of peculiar clarity this week - over coffee, of course!
Think of almost any area of life - money, prayer, admin, mental discipline, talk prep, dealing with praise or failure... In each of these I tend to set the bar low for myself and try hard to achieve that level.
What the Bible calls me to do is set the bar at God's height, knowing that failure will come and being prepared to deal with that at the cross. [Josh Harris makes part of this point in his 'Not Even a Hint' (which has now been re-named).]
Part of this comes back to being wrongly excited by signs of grace in my life (which is inextricably linked to being wrongly depressed by failures). God saved me as a failure, and will bring me to Glory as a sanctified, Spirit-filled failure made to be like Christ.
Nothing wrong with being excited by signs of grace, of course; nothing wrong with seeing the Spirit's work in our lives... The issue is how we deal with such things, and whether we live for them or merely use them as spurs towards that which we should rightly live for.
How sad to dilute the Bible's teaching - the loving words of my munificent Lord for my best good - so that they are vaguely accessible, and then to ignore both God's great standards and great Servant who is within me for this fight.
One way - my old way - just fails to grasp both God's true standards and God's great grace. But on the up-side, it frequently makes me feel very good about myself! The other way is very very hard...
Dare I resolve to set the bar as infinitely high as God does, and go forth in his strength, knowing failures will come but intending to deal with them at Calvary and press on?
Dare I not?
This is what I do: set the bar low & live by works.There is all the difference in the world.
This is what the Bible says: set the bar high & live by grace.
Think of almost any area of life - money, prayer, admin, mental discipline, talk prep, dealing with praise or failure... In each of these I tend to set the bar low for myself and try hard to achieve that level.
What the Bible calls me to do is set the bar at God's height, knowing that failure will come and being prepared to deal with that at the cross. [Josh Harris makes part of this point in his 'Not Even a Hint' (which has now been re-named).]
Part of this comes back to being wrongly excited by signs of grace in my life (which is inextricably linked to being wrongly depressed by failures). God saved me as a failure, and will bring me to Glory as a sanctified, Spirit-filled failure made to be like Christ.
Nothing wrong with being excited by signs of grace, of course; nothing wrong with seeing the Spirit's work in our lives... The issue is how we deal with such things, and whether we live for them or merely use them as spurs towards that which we should rightly live for.
How sad to dilute the Bible's teaching - the loving words of my munificent Lord for my best good - so that they are vaguely accessible, and then to ignore both God's great standards and great Servant who is within me for this fight.
One way - my old way - just fails to grasp both God's true standards and God's great grace. But on the up-side, it frequently makes me feel very good about myself! The other way is very very hard...
Dare I resolve to set the bar as infinitely high as God does, and go forth in his strength, knowing failures will come but intending to deal with them at Calvary and press on?
Dare I not?
posted by Andrew at 7:33 pm
4 Comments:
What's Not Even a Hint been renamed? I thought it was a good name.
Yes, I liked it too - and JH flags it up in relation to the point I've just been trying to make...
New title is also good though: 'sex is not the problem, lust is'.
Except sex sometimes is the problem, not just lust.
(Think I agree with Ros there. In my experience, sexual immorality is as much about emotional dependency as about lust. 'Not even a hint' was a much better title. And more Scriptural!)
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