The Discipline of Grace

Greetings All!

Today's thought comes to you from Jerry Bridges and is found in his superb book, "The Discipline of Grace."
     What's the theme of the book?  How grace and the effort required to live a life of holiness are not incompatible. He shows how grace does not negate the need for effort, but actually empowers it and makes godly effort possible. Grace is not the need to do "nothing," but the God-implanted and God-sustained motivation and power to do what God would have us do! As Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15:10 where he compares himself to the other apostles: "By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect.  No, I worked harder than the all, yet not I but the grace of God that was with me."  Grace, Paul assures us, empowers and sustains effort.  It is undeserved power and divinely given assistance that enables us to do what God wills. It's an unearned and undeserved inner urge, compulsion, strength, and assistance which comes from God and apart from which "we can do nothing" (John 15:5). 
     If you don't have a copy of this book, or have not read it, you have missed out on a real gem.  For he clears up what is for many the seemingly unsolvable paradox between grace and effort, usually caused by a wrong understanding of grace, or the place of grace in the process of our growth in godliness.  The following excerpt is only one step in that process which he elaborates on in the rest of the book. Enjoy.

Good Day Bad Day

     "Grace and the personal discipline required to pursue holiness... are not opposed to one another. In fact, they go hand in hand. An understanding of how grace and personal, vigorous effort work together is essential for a life-long pursuit of holiness. Yet many believers do not understand what it means to live by grace in their daily lives, and they certainly don't understand the relationship of grace to personal discipline.

     Consider two radically different days in your own life. The first one is a good day for you spiritually. You get up promptly when your alarm goes off and you have a refreshing and profitable quiet time as read your Bible and pray... The second day is just the opposite. You don't get up when your alarm goes off. Instead, you shut it off and go back to sleep. When you finally awaken, it's too late to have quiet time. You hurriedly gulp down some breakfast and rush off to the days activities. You feel guilty about oversleeping and missing your quiet time, and things generally go wrong all day.  On the evening of both days you quite unexpectedly have an opportunity to share the gospel with someone who is really interested in receiving Christ as Savior. Would you enter those two witnessing opportunities with a different degree of confidence? Would you be less confident of the bad day than the good day? Would you find it difficult to believe that God would bless you and use you in the midst of a rather bad spiritual day?

     If you answered yes to any of those questions, you have lots of company among believers. I've described these two scenarios and asked audiences, "Would you respond differently?" Invariably about 80% indicate they would. They would be less confident of God's blessing while sharing Christ at the end of a bad day than they would after a good one. Is such thinking justified? Does God work that way? The answer to both questions is no, because God's blessing does not depend on our performance.  Why then do we think this way? It is because we believe that God's blessing on our lives is somehow conditioned on our spiritual performance. If we've performed well we assume we are in a position for God to bless us.  We know God's blessings come to us through Christ, but we also have this vague but very real notion that they are also conditioned on our behavior.  A friend used to think, "If I do certain things then I can get God to come through for me."  People who have a bad day tend to have no doubt in their minds that they have forfeited God's favor for a certain period of time, most likely until the next day... They think God would not use them to share the Gospel with someone on a "bad" day because, "they wouldn't be worthy." Such a reply reveals an all-too-common misconception of the Christian life: The thinking that although we are saved by grace, we earn of forfeit God's blessings in our daily lives by our performance.

     So what should we do when we've had a "bad" day spiritually, when it seems we've done everything wrong and are feeling guilty?  We must go back to the cross and see Jesus there bearing our sins in His own body (I Peter 2:24). We must by faith appropriate for ourselves the blood of Christ that will cleanse our guilty consciences (Hebrews 9:14).  We must remember that even when we have flagrantly and willfully sinned, Jesus bore the sins we've committed this day in His body on the cross. He suffered the punishment we deserve, so that we might experience the blessings He deserved.... I am not proposing a cavalier attitude toward sin. Rather, I am saying Christ is greater than our sin, even on our worst days. To experience that grace, however, I must lay hold of it by faith in Christ and His death on our behalf...

     Now let's go back to the "good" day scenario... Have you thereby earned God's blessing that day?  Will God be pleased to bless you because you've been good?  You are probably thinking, "Well, when you put it like that, the answer is no. But doesn't God work through clean vessels? To which I reply, "Let's assume that is true. How good do you have to be to be a clean vessel? How good is good enough?" ...

     Jesus said: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind... and your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39)... Have you perfectly kept those two commands (even on your best day)? And if not, does God grade on a curve? Is 90% a passing grade with God? We know the answers to those questions, don't we? Jesus said, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."  And James wrote, "Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at just one point, is guilty of breaking it all" (James 2:10).

     The point of this good-day-bad-day scenario is this: Regardless of our performance, we are always dependent on God's grace, His undeserved favor to those who deserve His wrath. Some days we may be more acutely conscious of our sinfulness and hence more aware of our need of His grace, but there is never a day when we can stand before Him on the two feet of our own performance and be worthy enough to deserve His blessing. At the same time, the good news of the Gospel is that God's grace is available even on our worst days. That is because Christ Jesus fully satisfied the claims of God's justice and fully paid the penalty of a broken law when he died on the cross in our place. Because of that the apostle could write, "He forgave all our sins" (Colossians 2:13).

     Does the fact that God has forgiven us all our sins mean that He no longer cares whether we obey or disobey? Not at all. (Ephesians 4:30, Colossians 1:10)   He cares about our behavior and will discipline us when we refuse to repent of conscious sin. But God is no longer our Judge. Through Christ He is now our heavenly Father who disciplines us only out of love and only for our good.  If God's blessings were dependent on our performance they would be meager indeed. For even our best works are shot through with sin -- with varying degrees of impure motives and lots of imperfect performance.

     So here is an important spiritual principle that sums up what I've said so far: Your worst days are never so BAD that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so GOOD that you are beyond the need of God's grace.  Every day of our Christian experience should be a day of relating to God on the basis of His grace alone. We are not only saved by grace, but we also live by grace every day. This grace comes through Christ, "through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand"  (Romans 5:2)." 

     It's another way of stating the truth I frequently tell believers to make sure they don't get it backwards: "In Christ we work FROM grace, not FOR grace."  And believe me, that should be the cause of much thanks and praise!

     Blessings on your day, whether you happen to be having a bad one where you need God's grace, or a good one where you also need God's grace, Pastor Jeff

Perfection

Greetings All, 

      Today I thought I would give you some thoughts on "perfection" or "perfectionism."  I should warn you right from the start that I believe perfection is unattainable in this life, and that perfectionism (as an overall life-principle) is the cause of much despair, frustration and joylessness in the lives of people. 

 

      I have had to encourage many a despairing person to either lower their perfectionistic standards, or accept the fact that they will never experience joy, since setting absurdly high standards of perfection always causes us to see only the flaws, or mistakes, or the things that need to be fixed (whether it be in us, or the things we do, or in others, or the things they do).  Perfectionists do not tend to be happy campers.  I speak as a recovering perfectionist myself, who would have to agree with Hugh Prather when he said: "Perfectionism is slow death.”

 

      If I understand the Bible correctly, since the fall of man perfection has walked the face of the earth once and only once, and that was in the person of Jesus.  All others "have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."  We are to grow and mature and pursue Christlikeness, but we will never even approach attaining such perfection in this life (I John 1:8-9).  In fact, coming to admit our imperfections, as well as our inability to ever reach perfection in this life, is the first step on the path to salvation, and one of the main steps in the process of sanctification.   

 

      We can miss the purpose of Christ's perfection if we think it is only an example or ideal for us to pursue.  Richard Sibbes, the great Puritan divine, put it so well when he once wrote:  "What is the Gospel itself but a merciful moderation, in which Christ's obedience is esteemed ours, and our sins laid upon Him; wherein God, from being our judge, becomes our Father, pardoning our sins and accepting our obedience, though feeble and blemished...  The law requires personal, perpetual, and perfect obedience... but under the covenant of grace it must have an evangelical mitigation. A sincere endeavor proportionable to grace is received and accepted."  Jesus lived our perfection for us, and God counts His perfection as if it were ours if we will only trust in Him. That's the wonder of the Gospel.

 

     The following thoughts, taken from many sources, offer many varied insights into the quest for human perfection. Enjoy.

 

 

"We shall never come to the perfect man till we come to the perfect world."

Matthew Henry

 

  "This is the very perfection of a man -- to find out his own imperfections... If you should say, 'It is enough, I have reached perfection,' all is lost, since it is the function of perfection to make one know one's own imperfections. ”

     St. Augustine

 

“People throw away what they could have by insisting on perfection, which they cannot have,

and looking for it where they will never find it.”    

Edith Schaffer

 

"It is right to be contented with what we have, but never with what we are."

Sir James Mackintosh

 

"The search for perfection begins with detecting imperfection.”  

Anonymous

 

"Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.”  

Lord Chesterfield

 

"Ideals are like the stars -- we never reach them, but like the mariners of old traversing the sea

we chart our course by them."

Carl Schurz

 

"The biblical demand for perfection (under the law) was meant to drive us away from looking to ourselves for salvation and lead us right into the arms of Jesus."  

 

 

With hope that you will find your resting place there, Pastor Jeff

Grace, Performance and Trust

Greetings All,

This week's 'thought' comes from Miles J. Stanford's book, "Principles of Spiritual Growth" (though the quote itself is primarily from J. N. Darby, and Wm. R. Newell). It speaks of the common mistake of trying to reason out our acceptability with God by evaluating our performance or looking to our present life circumstances.

I trust you will find it encouraging. (Some strictly theological terms have been updated or explained through paranthetical insertions). Enjoy.

"'We are accepted in the Beloved.' Our Father is fully satisfied with His Beloved Son on our behalf, and there is no reason for us not to be. God can be satisfied with us only because He is satisfied with Christ (to whom we are joined by faith). It is from God to us and not from us to God.

J. N. Darby was very clear on this: 'When the Holy Spirit reasons with man, He does not reason from what man is for God, but from what God is to man. Souls reason from what they are in themselves as to whether God can accept them. He cannot accept you on this basis. You are looking for righteousness in yourself as a ground of acceptance with Him. You cannot get peace while you are reasoning in that way'...

Sadly today, most believers actually reason from themselves to God. When all is going well, and God seems to be blessing, then it is that they feel He loves and accepts them. But when they are stumbling, and everything seems dry and hard, then they feel that He does not love and accept them. How can this be? There is nothing about us to commend us to God. Our acceptance is in Christ. Plus, most of our true spiritual development comes through the dry and hard times. God has accepted us in His Son, and upon this FACT we must rest our faith. As in justification, our acceptance is by GRACE alone.

In his classic, 'Romans, Verse by Verse,' Wm. R. Newell presents some penetrating thoughts regarding this grace:

'There being no cause in the creature why grace should be shown, the creature must be brought off from trying to give cause to God for his care.' 'He has been accepted in Christ, who IS his standing!' 'He is not on probation.' 'As to his past life, it does not exist before God: he died at the cross and Christ is his life.' 'Grace, once bestowed, is not withdrawn: for God knew all the human exigencies beforehand: His action was independent of them, not dependent upon them.'

'To believe, and to consent to be loved while unworthy, is the great secret.'

'Refuse to make 'resolutions' and 'vows', for that is to trust in the flesh.'

'Expect to be blessed, though realizing more and more lack of worth.'

'Rely on God's chastening hand as a mark of His kindness.'

'To 'hope for the better' (so you may be more acceptable) is to fail to see yourself in Christ only.'

'To be disappointed with yourself is to have believed in yourself.'

'To be discouraged is unbelief -- as to God's purpose and plan for blessing you.'

'To be proud is to be blind! For we have no standing before God in ourselves.'

'The lack of Divine blessing, therefore, comes from unbelief, and not from failure of devotion.'

'To preach devotion first, and blessing second, is to reverse God's order, and preach law, not grace. The Law made man's blessing depend on devotion; Grace confers undeserved, unconditional blessing: our devotion may follow, but does not always do so, at least not in proper measure'...

'To promise a man certainty of his destiny may seem, on the human level, like playing with fire; but this leaves God out of the picture. Those who have the deepest appreciation of grace do not continue in sin. Moreover, fear produces the obedience of slaves; love engenders the obedience of sons.' -- J. W. Sanderson, Jr."

To the glory of His Grace, Pastor Jeff

Speed Limit Ahead

Greetings All,
This weeks 'thought'' comes from Michael Yaconelli's book "Messy Spirituality." It's a book for people tired of the relentless parade of success stories. It's for people who know their imperfections all too well and wrestle with sins they never quite conquer. It's for people who know their desperate need for God's grace in Jesus and cling to it with all tenacity.

The premise of the book (in my opinion) is found on page 13 where he states: "Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives. Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God's being present in the mess of our unfixedness."

Michael passed away a few years back after spending 42 years in ministry. This thought is in memory of him. For his willingness to be transparent and for his many helpful insights.

The Sin of Speed and the Need for Increasing Slowness

"When my children were young, track meets filled part of each week during the spring. One particularly hot spring day, I attended a junior high track meet, arriving in the middle of the boys' 1500 meter race. During the last lap of the race, the audience stood, cheering two boys running side by side for the final 50 meters. A short distance behind them ran a pack of about four or five boys jockeying for third place... As I looked down the track, I saw one boy lagging far behind. Poor kid. The portly seventh grader struggled for each breath, his face red and sweaty, the main artery in his neck bulging and throbbing to supply oxygen to his deprived muscles. Suddenly the woman to my left stepped over me and rushed down to the railing overlooking the track -- obviously the boy's mother. She screamed, 'Johnny, run faster!' I wish you could have seen the incredulous look on the boy's face. He had to be thinking, 'Mom! I'm running as fast as I can!'

Spiritual growth does not happen by running faster. What keeps many of us from growing is not sin but speed. Most of us are like Johnny. We are going as fast as we can, living life at a dizzying speed, and God is nowhere to be found. We're not rejecting God; we just don't have time for him. We've lost him in the blurred landscape as we rush to church. We don't struggle with the Bible, but with the clock. It's not that we're too decadent; we're too busy. We don't feel guilty because of sin, but because we have no time for our spouses, our children, or our God. It's not sinning too much that's killing our souls, it's our schedule that's annihilating us. Most of us don't come home at night staggering drunk. Instead, we come home staggering tired, worn out, exhausted, and drained because we live too fast.

Speed is not neutral. Fast living used to mean a life of debauchery; now it just means fast, but the consequences are even more serious. Speeding through life endangers our relationships and our souls. Voices surround us, always telling us to move faster. It may be our boss, our pastor, our parents, our wives, our husbands, our politicians or sadly, even ourselves. So we comply. We increase the speed. We live life in the fast lane because we have no slow lanes anymore. Every lane is fast, and the only comfort our culture can offer is more lanes and increased speed limits. The result? Too many of us are running as fast as we can, and an alarming number of us are running much faster than we can sustain.

Speed damages our souls because living fast consumes every ounce of our energy. Speed has a deafening roar that drowns out the whispering voices of our souls and leaves Jesus as a diminishing speck in the rear view mirror. Spiritual growth is not running faster, as in more meetings, more Bible studies, and more prayer meetings. Spiritual growth happens when we slow our activity down. If we want to meet Jesus, we can't do it on the run. If we want to stay on the road of faith, we have to hit the brakes, pull over to the rest area, and stop. Christianity is not about inviting Jesus to speed through life with us; it's about noticing Jesus sitting at the rest stop...

The ugly truth, however, is that many of us do not know how to rest. Actually, we do know how to rest; we simply refuse to rest. [Adrenaline can be addicting!] * Rest is a decision we make. Rest is choosing to do nothing when we have too much to do, slowing down when we feel pressure to go faster, stopping instead of starting. Rest is listening to our weariness and responding to our tiredness, not to what is making us tired. Rest is what happens when we say one simple word: 'No!'

[Yet] Rest is the ultimate humiliation, because in order to rest, we must admit we are not necessary, that the world can get along without us, that God's work does not depend on us. Once we understand how unnecessary we are, only then might we find the right reasons to say yes. Only then might we find the right reasons to decide to be with Jesus, instead of working for him. Only then might we have the courage to take a nap with Jesus."

( * Parenthetical insertion my own. Learned by the experience of a fellow speeder.)
Living in the Grace of Jesus, Pastor Jeff

Dr. Jeffrey F. Evans

God's Love

Greetings All,

      Today's "thought" has to do with God's love for His own.  I send it to you with the firm conviction that our comfort, peace, rest of soul and growth in Christ hinges upon on our grasping by faith the assurance that His love for us is unchanging and unchangeable. 

      This thought comes to you from Charles Haddon Spurgeon (purported to be the greatest preacher that ever lived) from an old book in my library - "Spurgeon's Gems" - dated circa 1860.  Other than slightly updating some of the language, it comes to you as he preached it to his congregation, from his London pulpit, around that time.  Enjoy!

"Beloved, can you conceive how much Christ will love you when you are in heaven?  Have you ever tried to fathom that bottomless sea of affection in which you shall swim, when you shall bathe yourself in the seas of heavenly rest? Did you ever think of the love which Christ will manifest to you, when He shall present you without spot, or blemish, or any such thing, before His Father's throne? 

      Well, pause and remember that He loves you at this very hour as much as He will love you then; for He will be the same forever as He is today, and He is the same today as He will be forever. 

       This one thing I know:  If Jesus' heart is set on me, He will not love me one atom better when [I am in heaven] than He does now, amidst all my sin and care and woe.  I believe that saying which is written -- "As the Father has loved Me, even so I have loved you;" and a higher degree of love we cannot imagine.  The Father loves His Son infinitely, and even so today, believer, the Son of God loves you... He cannot love you more, He will not love you less." 

 J. I. Packer says essentially the same thing in his book "Knowing God":   "God receives and loves us with the same stadfast affection with which he eternally loves his only-begotten.  There are no distinctions of affection in the divine family.  We are all loved just as fully as Jesus is loved.  It is like a fairy story - the reigning monarch adopts waifs and strays to make princes of them.  But, praise God, it is not a fairy story:  it is hard and solid fact, founded on the bedrock of free and sovereign grace.

 When we think of God's love as being conditioned upon our performance, we will struggle to even conceive how He could ever love us.  For we know so well the sin that pollutes our motives and thoughts and affections and actions. Such self-knowledge causes us to flounder in our faith, become anxious and afraid and even entertain thoughts of throwing in the towel.  If His love is conditioned on us, or how well we do, what's the use of even trying?

        Yet when we realize (in accordance with the Gospel) that God's love was set upon us before we had done anything good or bad (Rom. 9) and that it was irrevocably secured for us by Christ and not left to rest upon our fickle and ever-changing performance (Rom. 8:28-39), it fills the heart with joy and the soul with a peace that passes understanding.  

      The focus of our faith is never us - what we are, do or have done - but Jesus and what He did on our behalf.  Only in that, and that alone, can one ever truly have rest for their soul.

       

In the Bonds of Gospel Hope,  Pastor Jeff

 

 

Dr. Jeffrey F. Evans