desperately wicked // unbelievably loved : condemnation (2)

This is part 2 of my grace blog series. Check out part 1 here: desperately wicked // unbelievably loved.

"Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up! Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God." Galatians 3:2-6, The Message

Like I said in my previous post, as Christians, a skewed perspective concerning grace and the law can dramatically impact our lifestyle and relationship with God. I think one of the most common perspectives is one that relies heavily on our own efforts rather than God's work in us. We often even unintentionally see the Christian life as time to work on our own righteousness so that God doesn't have much of a gap to fill once we die. You may have this mindset without even realizing it. I know I do sometimes, probably more than I would admit or even realize.


Just ask yourself if you do any of these things:

-You are constantly thinking of things you need to "work on." "I need to work on my patience." "I need to work on reading my Bible more often." "I need to work on obeying my parents." The list goes on and on. These are all good things, but notice the emphasis on I and my. We may change for a little while on our own, but only God can make lasting transformations in our lives.

-You feel like you have to be doing everything right before you can have a relationship with God. "Once I start reading my Bible every day, I can really have a relationship with God."

-You keep a scoreboard in your head, whether it's specific or general, of the good things you've done and the bad things you've done. As long as you're on the winning side of this scoreboard, you're okay, but if you start losing, you freak out. You start rethinking all the things you've done wrong and think of all the good things you need to do to start winning again. 

-When you mess up (or think you might have messed up), your heart drops, you replay the situation in your head, trying to figure what went wrong, how you could have fixed it, how you can fix it now. You can't stop thinking about your failure, and every time you think about the situation you have the worst sinking feeling.

-You compare yourself to other people. You see what other people are doing and feel the need to do as well or as much as you perceive they are doing. Or, you compare yourself to people and think you are better than them, but we'll get to that in the next post.

-Your identity is found in your successes and failures. When you succeed, you are a successful person. When you fail, you are a failure. Your successes and failures determine your mood, your state of mind, your outlook on life.

Do these sound familiar? I'm definitely guilty of all of these to some extent.


No wonder we live this way. The world tells us from childhood on, "You did good. You deserve a trophy. You hit your friend. You'll sit in time-out. You committed a crime. You'll do community service. You made a difference in your community. Here's a plaque." This is the system of the world. You succeed, you're rewarded. You mess up, there are real consequences, and you have to earn back your credibility. This is the system we know, so often we expect God's system to be this way, but it isn't. His grace transcends the systems of this world.

Often our striving for our own righteousness comes out of our deep settled understanding of grace and the law. Those of us who live in constant striving and condemnation slip into slavery to the law and to our sinful nature. When we tally our deeds, we tell Jesus, "Thank you for dying for me, but I'm just gonna keep striving over here, because your sacrifice isn't quite enough for me." (Disclaimer: Don't worry, I will talk about the improper perspective that says, "I can sin all I want because God's grace covers me"). Whether it's intentional or not, sometimes we see God's grace as a filler for the little gaps in our righteousness. Listen. Our righteousness is like filthy rags to God. Filthy rags. The "best thing" we have done in our lives. Filthy rags to him. So, if our righteousness looks like filthy rags to him, why does he have anything to do with us? I guess it doesn't have much to do with our own righteousness. Jesus doesn't just complete us where we lack, he fills us with himself. His righteousness becomes ours in this great exchange. He took upon himself all of our unrighteousness so that we could have his righteousness. So that we could stand before the Father clothed in the righteousness of his Son, not merely our own righteousness patched with his.

So stop striving to fix yourself. Let the Holy Spirit come in and change you from the inside out. If you strive for anything, strive to know him. As you know him, he will transform you into that person you were once striving to be. He's waiting for you to let go of your own righteousness, take hold of his, and live as a fully known, fully loved child of God. 

Blessings to you! More to come. Keep reading.