A God of mercy

If it is true that God takes no pleasure in wickedness - that He "hate[s] all workers of iniquity" and "abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man," as Psalm 5:4-6 says - than it is a problem of incredible concern and importance for each and every one of us. I wouldn't say I was bloodthirsty (far from it, in fact!), but when I see the bitterness, hatred, and resentment my heart holds on to and even takes pleasure in, I can't deny that there is wickedness and sin inside me. And the general consensus of the rest of humanity, and the doctrine of Christianity, is that I am not alone in this deep internal sinfulness: for "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Rom. 3:23)

What do we do, then? What is the next step to take, when we see the sin inside us, when the weight of it breaks our hearts and leads us to the edge of despair, because all our efforts cannot eradicate it completely from our lives? I think the same psalm that described the righteous position of a holy God towards wickedness describes equally well the only beneficial next step for us to take:

"But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy;
In fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple." - Psalm 5:7-8

Continuing to try to perfect myself will never succeed; the only option that can bring life, joy, and contentment is to come to God riding the waves of His mercy, carried in the arms of His mercy, lifted on the wings of His mercy: forgiven and reconciled by His mercy. Striving to lift myself to heaven or to give myself worth and value, to earn the respect and adulation of others and even of God, can only lead to the empty and cold triumph of pride that is more failure than victory even in its highest moment; but coming to God with reverence and humility, to lift unto Him the worship and adoration of a heart in love to a God worthy of praise - that is the key to peace and fulfillment, the one thing necessary to find meaning and freedom.

It is indeed true that God takes no pleasure in wickedness, but it is also true that He is a God of mercy, and because He is a God of mercy we can be a people of hope. We can cry to our God in our trouble, even when our trouble is brought on by our own sin, and we can wait eagerly, watching as for the morning, for His answer to our prayer. Because we have put our trust in Him, we can rejoice in the surety of His faithfulness, and let the burdens and pains of this life and of our sin be carried for us by the God who defends us with strength unassailable.

Sin and sanctification

There's a part of me that values worldly prestige and esteem - part of me that wants to have a job that looks good to the people around me, and that wants my husband to also have such a job, so that people will look up to us and value us for our success in meeting these very worldly priorities. It was this part of me, a couple years ago, that was happy when Paul decided to pursue physical therapy instead of teaching, because medical professions carry quite a bit of esteem in this white-collar, upper-middle class system of rating. It is this part of me that wants a higher degree (particularly a PhD!), just so that I can be more respected according to those same rankings. And while I don't think this is a very large part of me, it is certainly there: a desire to build my life around temporal pursuits in the hope of winning the approval and esteem of people who generally don't even share my worldview and values, and a thirst for the acclaim and admiration of created beings rather than the Creator, over fleeting rather than eternal things. In essence, that part of me has fallen for the lies and temptations of the world, and wants to chase after that tantalizing golden apples it proffers instead of keeping to the course and running for "the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:14).

What concerns me is that I wasn't even aware of this desire until very recently, when a chance conversation brought it into glaring relief. Before then, if you had talked to me about the issue, I wouldn't have said that I valued that esteem or that I thought a white-collar job more worthy or meaningful than a blue-collar job (or that I ranked careers even within those categories); I would have told you that what mattered to me was honoring God with one's life and following Him on whatever path He chose, whether that included worldly riches and acclaim or material poverty and social scorn. But secretly, inside me, the desire for acclaim - the hidden pride, to give it its true name - was influencing my decisions, my thoughts about life, and my attitudes toward different options, while I remained largely ignorant of its existence and strength. It makes me wonder what other sinful attitudes, what other misaligned priorities, are hiding inside my heart!

What's encouraging, though, is that God did bring it to my attention eventually. If we knew all of our sinful traits and desires at once, it would probably be so overwhelming that we would despair of ever overcoming them! Instead, then, God works at our hearts slowly, gradually bringing our sins to light and conforming us to His image. He does want us to be perfect, with a great and terrible perfection mirroring His own unassailable holiness, but as He leads us to that place He guides and shapes us with loving, gentle hands. So a new realization of sin, or an increased awareness of the patterns and attitudes of our minds and hearts that are not in accordance with God, is not a reason for despair; rather, it is a reason for gratitude and increased trust in God's grace, because it is evidence of His Spirit's work of sanctification advancing forward into more areas of our life. As He brings the dark things in our hearts into the light of His truth, we can be assured that He will also bring them to defeat and destruction according to the same power by which He rose from the grave!

So it gives me hope that God is pointing out this hidden pride and desire for the world's esteem in my heart. It is not a good thing for it to be there; if left untouched and allowed to infiltrate into the foundations of my life and identity, it would center my heart on temporal and perishable things, draw me away from deeper knowledge, obedience and love of God, and disable much of my potential for serving and witnessing for God in this life. That is what any sin will do, given the opportunity, and this particular sin is one that attempts to attach one's love and vision to the world instead of to eternity. But it is a chance for me to experience and find joy in the grace and sanctifying power of God. By grace He brings sin to light; by grace He continues to love us despite that sin; by grace He enables us to find victory over that sin, even if it is only for moments at first; and by His great power He will someday present us to Himself fully perfect, completely purified from that sin and all other sins, blameless and holy before Him in love.

Fighting for joy

Sometimes in the midst of life it is difficult to see the big picture. Life is often compared to a journey or a path, through which we are traveling, but it can frequently seem more like the endless futile circles of an eddy off the main course of a river: coming from nowhere, going to nowhere, and doing nothing meaningful in the interim. If it is a path, we don't seem able to see either the progress we've made so far or the goal ahead, and maybe even the direction the path is going.

When we feel this way - or at least, when I feel this way - it can be incredibly easy to lose hope. The past feels hopeless first because it is unchangeable, but also because it can seem to be a lost and straggling road, meandering through worthless endeavors in pursuit of meaningless goals, and because so often we feel that God has done nothing in our lives through all those years - that we have not grown, that we have not born fruit, that He has not accomplished any of that transformational change in which we find life, joy, and love. Burdened with the weight of past futility, it is hard to find reason for hope in the present; even when we do something well, when life is full of happiness and light, when the people we love have the same love for us in return, and when we feel close to God and excited by our deepening relationship with Him, the curse whispers in the back of our minds: "It is a passing dream; it is all an illusion; in the deepest core of reality, no one loves you and nothing you do will ever amount to anything." If we listen to that diabolical voice, it will veil the eyes of our heart to the goodness of God and murder the happiness and love we so deeply desire to know and to share. And it will begin to poison our hope for the future as well, by making us believe that in our truest being we are utter failures, worthless creatures incapable of ever achieving the great and beautiful visions we once had.

How can we, as Christians who are commanded to rejoice always, fight against this vision of the world and of ourselves, against these emotions that threaten to destroy whatever true hope there actually is for our lives? The first step, which seems too obvious to mention for those who have never been there, but which may appear almost impossible to those who are overwhelmed with this sense of futility and despair, is to desire joy. It is easy to say that we desire joy - after all, who wouldn't choose joy, light, and love over despair, darkness, and pain? But look at your heart and your mind in the middle of the black mood. When the little merry whispers come bringing you news of great joy, do you want to listen to them? Do you choose to listen to them, or do you push them aside so you can hold on to the darkness and the anger? I realized this week, for probably the first time in my life, that I am often doing just that - thrusting away the very light and love that my heart is crying out for, so that I can hold on to the blackness in my mind. And if we find ourselves choosing, my friends, to hold on to the hatred and the pain, then we have shown ourselves capable of choice in those moments of seemingly overwhelming despair. We are not thoroughly overwhelmed; we are not left without hope. For we still can choose.

After wanting joy, then, comes the desperately difficult task of choosing joy in every moment that the darkness tempts us. This is where we learn to be vigilant against sin (for despair is a sin, since it sets itself up against the true hope that is in Christ), to strengthen our wills and minds and bodies in fighting for the kingdom (for even these small battles in our minds, that seem to have no larger meaning or value, are battles waged for the kingdom of God against the power of sin and Satan), and to trust more deeply and completely in the grace and love of our Lord. This is where we discover the power of truth and the wonder of joy, the strength of hope and the might of faith, as we employ them in our service as weapons of war and see our foes defeated before us - and it is where we discover the riches of the grace of God as He forgives and restores every time we fall before them. He is the ultimate conqueror, after all, and will lead us in triumph; He will not forsake us, He will not stop loving us, and He does not consider us failures, no matter how purposeless our lives may seem. In Him, if we choose it, is joy unending, joy that is stronger than any pain or blackness. It was not idly, as an impossible ideal, that Paul wrote for us to rejoice always in Christ, and we can fight to grasp and keep that joy, vibrant and strong and beautiful, in our lives. And so we must fight, if we are to know and to follow God.

Walking in our faith

Sometimes I think we over-intellectualize our faith. Instead of learning from and applying the basic, simple, understandable meanings of the scriptures we read, we try to probe ever more deeply into the text - to see new insights that maybe no one else in our circle had seen before, or to build up theories and systems of doctrine. And sometimes it is good to search more deeply into the passages, to gain a fuller understanding of the words, their context, and their application: to use our minds to seek after the knowledge of God through His word. I think, however, that it is not always beneficial. C.S. Lewis once wrote about the dangers of theoretically and intellectually understanding a passage without equivalent practical and personal understanding - of having one's head filled with knowledge and ideas, but not having trained one's hands and feet and heart in the disciplines of obedience, service, and love. It can make us think we are farther along in our growth in the faith than we truly are, and it can begin to plant in us the seeds of spiritual pride. As Paul writes,

"Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing  yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him." - 1 Corinthians 8:1-3

It can be easy for certain types of people to acquire knowledge of the Bible and appear wise and mature in their faith, while in their heart drifting away from the foundational truths of the gospel, and in their life still needing to learn how to live out of the love and grace of God. I speak as one of these people, honestly. Acquisition of knowledge, in any sphere of my life, comes easily and is enjoyable, so it makes sense that I would delight in that part of the Christian life and begin to neglect other aspects of the faith! But God has redeemed and desires to transform our entire being, not just our minds. He wants to change our hearts, that they might learn compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and empathy. He wants to change our mouths, that they might learn to speak with truth and grace, to encourage and uplift and edify, to forego biting scorn and sarcasm. He wants to change our hands, that they might learn to give from love (of God and of others) rather than from duty, that they might labor not for our own good, but for the glory of God and in service (however menial or unpleasant) to others. He wants to change our feet, that they might not carry us to places of pleasure, comfort, and entertainment, but to places where the darkness of sin is powerful and the need and suffering of our fellow human beings is great. He wants to change our will, that it should no longer be bound by our stomachs, or our sexual desires, or any of our natural sinful tendencies, but instead be freely following Him. God wants us to grow in our knowledge - there is no doubt or argument about that - but this growth of knowledge should be informed by our love of God and of others, and it is only a part of the growth and change that He desires of us.

So as we read, let us also seek to apply - not in the typical Bible study meaning of that word, that rarely leads to true and lasting change, but in the sense of honestly striving to live in obedience to the commands of God, by His grace, and from a foundation of love. When we read, let us first seek to know and understand God more, and then seek to discover how we ought to be living with and for Him in our faith! And if we find that a certain path we have chosen does not honor Him, or if we find that we have been ignoring or neglecting certain aspects of our faith, then we should immediately step off that path or begin to cultivate those aspects of our faith. Our reading and studying should be for the purpose of following God more closely, not for the sake of being the one with the most knowledge and the deepest insights. The Christian faith is profoundly this-wordly, to use Bonhoeffer's language; it calls us to live completely in the world, even though we are not of the world - to genuinely love, to sacrificially serve, and to wholeheartedly obey - to walk in the truths of the gospel, not merely to know them in our minds.

Living out the Christ-life

Recently, I've been listening to a recording of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis in the car and occasionally at work (I think I listened to it three or four times this past week, because my iPod is set to begin a playlist over again once it completes it so I just kept listening to the book over again), and a lot of different things have caught my attention, made me think, and challenged my actions and attitudes. One in particular is Lewis's argument that Christian morality (as opposed to other systems of morality) is not in its essence about following a list of rules and laws, but is rather about becoming like a specific person - namely, Christ. Therefore, when one is attempting to discern whether a particular course of action is moral, the best question to ask is not "is this action right or wrong?" but "is this action something that Christ would do?" Obviously moral laws and standards are a great help to this: if something is clearly forbidden by the standards in the Bible, then it isn't going to be something Christ would do, and doing it isn't going to help us emulate Christ and become more like Him.

But this different perspective goes both deeper and higher than the moral laws. There are many things (small, everyday, trivial things) that are not strictly wrong but that are not in the spirit of Jesus Christ, and choosing to do them, though it may not bother our consciences at all, will not help us grow into the Christ-life (to borrow one of my favorite Lewisian words) God is giving us. So this desire to emulate Christ pushes us higher than the moral law does on its own. In addition, in seeking to be like Christ we find that it is not enough to change our actions: we must also change our attitudes and thoughts; no, we must go further still - we must change the very essence of who we are. So we are cut far deeper by this need to become like Christ than we ever were by the moral law alone (and it can cut quite deep!).

However, I also find it incredibly encouraging. To become like Christ in character as well as in outward action, I must become a better person than I ever guessed just from studying the laws and standards that attempt to define righteous behavior, and I continually found myself falling short of those laws alone. And here I see my whole self falling short of being like Him, knowing that no matter how much I perfect my actions, words, and behaviors there will still be sinful thoughts and uncontrolled emotions in the depth of my being that I will never be able to eradicate. You might ask, at this point, why I say I find this encouraging! It is simply this: when I see that the law (which I can delude myself into thinking I am able to obey, if I try hard enough) is only a shallow and superficial veneer over the whole depth and glorious height of perfection to which we are called in being like Christ, my pride has to fall back and I am free to rest upon the grace of my Lord. Do you see how it works? Only when we realize that we are unable to reach the heights to which we are called will we begin to rely on God's grace, and it is only when we begin to rely on His grace that we begin to experience the great freedom and power of being His child. He has made us for glory, and He will lead us there in Christ, by making us like Christ, by drawing us deeper into the knowledge of Christ.

Meditation for Ash Wednesday

I've been writing about death, specifically as in our death as citizens of heaven to this world (here and here), for the past couple days because today is the first day of Lent, and Lent is in a sense all about death. In the sense that Advent is a time of preparation leading up to the celebration of Christmas, Lent is a time to ready our souls for the celebration of Easter. Traditionally, this is done by an increased focus on prayer, fasting, and giving: prayer aligns us with God, drawing us nearer to Him; fasting (not necessarily from food, but as a general practice of self-denial) is intended to help us detach from the pleasures and pursuits of this world, to die to ourselves; and giving is a restoration of harmony between people made by considering the needs and interests of others as well as of ourselves. So in our relationship with God, ourselves, and others we seek to put off the old man of sin and put on the new man of righteousness in Christ. Because of where the season falls in the liturgical year, it is also a fitting time to read the gospels and see how Jesus lived and conducted Himself as He prepared for His own death, and then seek to emulate Him in our lives here and now.

Shouldn't we be doing this all year long, though? Of course! Seeking righteousness for forty days during Lent isn't a ticket for pursuing our own pleasures and desires the rest of the year! But I think maybe it is good to have a yearly reminder, encouragement, and challenge to seek God more intentionally, just as it is good to rejoice in His resurrection on a specific day each year even though that resurrection should be a source of joy in our lives on every day. As long as the season of Lent remains just that, instead of becoming a ritual through which you try to obtain righteousness, merit, and the approval of God, I think it can be a very good thing - a time to recommit (to use a more Evangelical-friendly word!) and repent.

My main concern with Lent (and with many of the other traditions and rituals of the Church) comes from Paul's letter to the Colossians, where he writes,

"Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations - 'Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,' which all concern things which perish with the using - according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh."

For example, it is really spiritually beneficial to fast on Ash Wednesday, as the tradition goes? Or if I fast as a mere religious ritual, am I really strengthening my spiritual pride in my control over my flesh without actually having to learn self-denial and death in the ways God gives me to learn them? Am I creating my own rules, which I am capable of following, so that I don't have to face up to my failure to follow God's rules? Am I creating my own self-imposed religion, so that I don't have to feel my deep and biting need for God's grace?

While I want to commemorate Lent this year, I need to make sure that my heart is right as I do it (in the same way as I need to do with Advent and Christmas, honestly, although the temptations for each season are different). If I use the time to more intentionally seek God or to strive to be more generous with my resources, I must make sure that I do so without pride, without loudly proclaiming what I'm doing so as to get recognition for it, and with a genuine desire to know God more. He must be the center in order for it to be good - but conversely, if He is the center, than it will be good. And personally I think that if I spend all of Lent trying to follow God with my whole heart, I will be constantly reminded of my great need for His grace, so that when Easter comes (which is the celebration of His wonderful grace and power toward us!) I will be able to celebrate it with incredible joy - and hopefully I will have begun to establish patterns and habits of seeking God in my life, so that after the season is over I may continue to pursue Him just as intentionally and just as passionately.

My little dream and what it taught me

I had a rather amusing dream last night. It was around Thanksgiving, I presume, because we were baking pies. These pies were glorious! There were three pumpkin pies and one pecan pie, and I was so proud of them and so excited to serve them the next day at Thanksgiving dinner. But there were guests staying at the house (or maybe just family - I'm not sure how it went exactly) and they started eating those pies right then! And by the time they were done there was only one pumpkin and half the pecan left, and I was so upset because they had ruined everything for the next day, and hadn't shown any restraint or self-control or consideration. So in my dream, my mom was trying to calm me down and say that everything was ok, and the tension built up inside me so much that I let out this awful scream. At least, in my dream I did (which is impressive in itself, because usually my dreams don't have any kind of sound at all). Hopefully I didn't actually scream in my sleep and wake Paul up :P

Anyway, I think the dream illustrates rather nicely my desire for all things in life to be beautiful and perfect and well-ordered, as well as my inability to cope when it all goes wrong! I've been doing all this meditating on grace, but maybe I need to start learning to give grace to others when they don't follow my rules of order for a given situation - to live by grace rather than by law in the little trivial things like my dream presented as well as in the big matters of identity and life purpose. It could make life a lot more enjoyable, because it would allow the focus to be on relationships rather than on successful completion of a task or maintenance of an appearance :)

His strength in my weakness

In a letter to the Corinthian church, the Apostle Paul wrote the following well-known passage:

"And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

That first phrase - "My grace is sufficient for you" - is the one my mind usually lingers on (it's the one I have hanging on a wall in my house, too, which is probably why it comes to mind first!), but I want to set it aside and move past it today. Instead, I want to focus on the whole idea of God's strength being made perfect in our weaknesses - of our weakness being the opportunities for God's power to rest upon us and be made manifest in our lives.

When I think of my weaknesses, it is usually with shame, guilt, anxiety, and self-condemnation. I want to be cured of them, essentially: to be strong and perfect so that I can then give, love, sacrifice, and obey as God desires me to; to be righteous and above reproach in everything so that I can accomplish great and glorious things for God; to have my testimony be that He has made me perfect. At the center of this whirlwind is the desire to be something in myself so that I, myself, can please God. And I think most of us can relate to this desire to be able to offer something to Him, instead of always being needy and dependent!

But this is ultimately a self-focused desire, founded on pride (which is why our perceived failures and weaknesses, even about trivial things, matter so much to us, and why the slightest criticism has the potential to wound us deeply). While we do want to honor God, we also very much want it to be seen and known that we specifically are the ones honoring Him; we want Him to be glorified, but we specifically want Him to be glorified by our actions, and to share in His glory. Brothers and sisters, what I am slowly coming to know is that to truly honor Him our own honor must be utterly forsaken. In order to truly glorify Him with our lives we must learn not to desire our own glory in any way - to obey, and love, and seek God, and not care whether or not we are noticed, respected, or admired for our actions.

So our weaknesses really do become wonderful gifts, because they are precisely the areas where our obedience and love come from Christ's power rather than our own strength, and are thus the areas where we can most easily seek to glorify Him self-forgetfully. If we have nothing to offer, nothing to give, than we can give (but really it is God giving through us) without expecting glory or admiration in response. How could we expect those things, when the power to accomplish what we have done is not our own, but is God's power given to us, resting on us, and working through us?

Francois de Fenelon, a French priest and author from the late 1600s, wrote the following thoughts along these lines, which have been very convicting to me:

"Strength is made perfect in weakness. You are only strong in God when you are weak in yourself. Your weakness will be your strength if you accept it with a lowly heart.You will be tempted to believe that weakness and lowliness are not part of trusting God. It is commonly believed that to trust God you generously give God everything because you love Him so much. Heroic sacrifices are held up as true examples of trusting God. To truly trust God is not so glamorous." - The Seeking Heart

Isn't it true? We desire the glamor, the glory - we want to do great things for God and be the heroes whose stories are told throughout the church. But that is not truly trusting God, and it is not true strength in our faith either; true strength, perfect strength, is that which comes upon us from God in the midst of our weaknesses.

So I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses. My power is insufficient, but there is this great hope that Christ's power will rest upon me and work through me - and in this work it will be Christ Himself who receives the praise and the glory for whatever is accomplished, not me. And that is how it should be. It is His power, after all, that created me, sustains me, and gave me new life in Him through His death and resurrection. As I was unable to accomplish my own salvation, so I am unable in my own strength to continue in righteousness now that I have been saved. But in my weaknesses, His strength can be made manifest in my life, and I can begin to learn to set myself aside so that He may receive the glory, for it is His to receive.

A proper attitude towards sin

An anonymous reader left the following question on my previous post:

"I wonder how grace transforms our feelings about our own sin. Do we stop despising? Do we no longer care to forget? What is life like when we view our sin differently? Do we disregard it? Do we see sin as a way to learn and grow as individuals? Do we laugh at it? In other words, what is the or a proper attitude towards sin?"

As you can see, a lot is covered and asked in that comment, and I hope the reader will not mind that I am going to focus on the last question in my response: what is the (or a) proper attitude towards sin?

Before I begin, though, I have a disclaimer to make. Not being perfect myself, I don't respond to my own sin perfectly either. I would not be surprised if the way I think I ought to respond to my sin is also imperfect. That is an unfortunate but rather unavoidable consequence of not being omniscient and of having a sin nature that strives to darken and confuse what knowledge I do have. On the other hand, of course, I am much better equipped to write about how to respond to one's sin than about how to avoid sinning altogether, since I have had much more experience with the former than with the latter!

I believe there are three primary paired aspects of a proper attitude and response toward sin: first, confession and forgiveness; second, repentance and renewal; and finally, humility and grace. The first is pretty straightforward - in order for there to be healing, in order for one to move on from a sin and continue to try to follow God, there must be recognition of the sin and confession to God of the sin. As long as we are in denial of a sin, or as long as we are trying to conceal a sin from God (and often from others), we are allowing that sin to ensnare and enslave us. So it is important, however painful it may be, to confess our sin to God and to whomever else it may have affected. With God, we can be sure that He will forgive us that sin; that is what He has promised.

The strength given to us by God's forgiveness of our sin is what enable us to move on to the next step, to refocus the eyes of our hearts and to set our feet once more on the path He has laid out and which His word illuminates. In repentance, we turn away from our sin and gaze once more upon Christ. We press on again toward the goal, reaching for the prize. It is in this step that we remember that we are washed of our sin by the blood of Christ, that He has removed them as far as the east is from the west and has promised not to remember them - and so we too, in a sense, forget the sin and move forward. In Christ, following our repentance, we are set free (in a practical, immediate sense - eternally, we are already free and cannot be enslaved again) from the bondage in which our sin had placed us, so we can leave it behind. There is no guilt or condemnation.

In another sense, of course, we do remember our sin. We remember that we are weak in certain areas, and learn to be more wary of those temptations. We remember that when we felt we were following God with passion and zeal, sin still found a way to bring us down, and from these memories we learn humility. If we are honest with ourselves about our sinfulness, and about our constant need for God's forgiveness and renewal, it is hard to have a heart full of pride! Instead, we can use the occasion of sin to lead us to renewed gratitude and humility by giving us reason to remember the incredible grace of God. So while we will still struggle and sin, we can use those struggles and failures to mature our character and to deepen our understanding of and love for God, because of the gift of His grace.

I am thinking I would like to go into more depth on each of these three aspects, so there might be more posts forthcoming along these lines, but this is the essence of my thoughts on what exactly is the proper attitude of the Christian towards his or her own sin.

Another meditation on God's grace

When you begin to understand God's grace, it changes everything. How you perceive God, how you perceive yourself, how you perceive other people, how you deal with sins and shortcomings in yourself and others, how you deal with successes and recognition (both yours and others'), and how you handle all kinds of situations - all these things start to change. At least, this is what I am starting to see in myself as God has seemingly been coming at me on every side with this concept of grace, and interestingly enough, I'm seeing this change even in the midst of my sin. I don't mean that I'm suddenly sinning less, unfortunately, but that my response to my own sin is qualitatively different, at least a little bit. Sin does not automatically lead to despair, when grace is present; one failure does not mean that we need fear losing God's acceptance and love, when His grace has covered all our sins already and has reconciled us to Him.

The wonder of God's grace is that even as we mourn over and despise our own sin we can find peace for the past, strength for the present, and encouragement for the future through our hope in Jesus Christ. Do you know that wonder, of finding the strength in Him to forget the failures of the past and to try again to follow Him? The liberty of God's grace is that our lives are no longer bound by a list of "oughts" - a book of duties supplying an correct course of action for every situation - but rather by His love. Do you know that liberty, that breathtaking freedom of learning to live by grace rather than by law, of stepping outside the rigid walls of earthly duty and walking in the love and light of heaven? Outwardly, your actions may not change much, but the heart behind them will be altogether new. The burden of God's grace - and yet it is not a burden at all, but a gift whose value is beyond measure - is that He desires us to become channels, to pour out to others in every trivial daily event of our lives the great grace which He constantly pours upon us. To be able to give that grace to others, not as yet another thing we ought to do for God, to please Him with our law-keeping; nor yet with condescension, as if we were so great that we could certainly spare some grace for those lowly people around us; but with humility of heart, knowing we need grace at least as much as they do, and with gratitude of spirit that God has given us this chance to imitate Him in this most beautiful of His works toward us - that is a gift beyond description.

Hoping in His Mercy

"He [the Lord] does not delight in the strength of the hose;
He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.
The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him,
In those who hope in His mercy." - Psalm 147:10-11

Sometimes I wish I were perfect just so I could give myself to God and have Him be pleased with me, as if, somehow, my own merit and appearance of righteousness could be enough to meet His standards. I wish I could save myself (or somehow make it so I didn't need salvation) so that I could come to Him without needing to be dependent on Him, as if that would somehow make Him love me more or be more pleased with me. I think it is a common human desire: we wish to accomplish great things on our own to win the approval or acceptance of someone we respect, and we want to be able to do what ought to be done without needing to be a burden on someone we love. Of course, it doesn't work in our relationship with God! In our own strength, we can never live up to His standards or make ourselves righteous in His eyes, because we are stained and weighed down by sin. And in our own strength, we can never pay the penalty for our sins, because the punishment is too great for us to bear outside of eternity; if we chose to bear that burden ourselves because we didn't want to be dependent on God, He would let us - but we would never be able to be with Him in fellowship and love. For that, His grace is necessary.

The beauty of these verses is that in them we see that God finds pleasure not in the things we accomplish by our own striving and strength, but in us, we who have chosen to depend upon His grace and hope in His mercy. In the mindset of the previous paragraph, we were trying to make God delight in us by doing things that we thought would please Him and hoping that His pleasure in the good acts would translate to pleasure in us as persons; now what we see is that He takes pleasure in us when we let go of the good acts, and stop trying to be perfect on our own, and put our hope in His mercy and grace. Why would this be? Why would He be more pleased with us when we burden Him with our weaknesses and needs, relying on His grace and mercy to cover our sins, than when we strive to be righteous and offer to Him our good deeds?

Well, simply put, the answer is pride. To think that we are capable of doing for ourselves what only God can truly do (and what He suffered pain, humiliation, and death to accomplish) is incredibly proud. To want God to love us for our merit and innate goodness, so that we reject the love borne of His grace, is incredibly proud. It is saying, in essence, that we want the universe (and God!) to operate on our terms rather than on God's terms. We want His love and acceptance more than anything else - but we don't want to receive it in the way He has chosen to offer it to us. Let us lay down this pride before it leads us to the end to which it carried Satan! Let us accept the breath-taking offer of love and grace that He wants to give us, instead of trying to prove we are worthy first! We never will be, unless we first accept it as an undeserved gift.

But if we do accept His grace, knowing we don't now and never will deserve it through anything we can accomplish, then the incredible will happen. When we lay our broken and filthy souls at the foot of the cross, to receive His grace in humility and awe, we will find that He delights us, that He accepts us, that He loves us unconditionally. We will find that in the moment of surrender and faith we will have attained what all our striving could never earn: His pleasure in us. For He takes pleasure in those who fear Him - in those who hope in His mercy.

Little gifts and mighty graces

God is always giving us little gifts - the sun coming out after rain, the happiness of welcoming a loved one home again, good food and a full stomach, the comforting warmth of blankets and pillows at the end of the day, the quiet pleasure of a day of rest, and so on. Indiscriminately, he fills our days full of these little gifts; sometimes we rejoice in them with gratitude, and sometimes we hardly notice them. Assuming we choose not to ignore them, though, these little gifts are enough to bring us joy and satisfaction for a lifetime. However, God does not limit Himself to them. His purpose, being set on eternity as well as temporality, is not content with merely blessing us in this life; He wishes also to bless us with gifts that will last for eternity and with gifts that will bring eternity to our hearts here and now. Obviously the greatest of these gifts is salvation! In between this overwhelming, unfathomable, unbelievable grace, and the little daily graces that we take for granted, though, are many rich and beautiful gifts - graces that surprise and amaze us with their extravagance, and that transform and inspire our hearts.

These intermediate graces are, I think, children of the grace of salvation. Having saved us - having bought us with the blood of Christ, adopted us into His family, and sealed us with His Spirit - God is not content to have merely covered us with His righteousness: He desires to cause that righteousness to grow up and bear fruit within our very hearts. To accomplish this purpose, He bestows upon us these sanctifying graces. There is the grace of knowing His tender comfort in the midst of great sorrow; of gaining security and peace through His strength becoming our defense in times of worry or fear; of hearing His ever-loving voice answer our confusion with His truth; and so on. They are less frequent than the little common graces, but they are also more powerful. They cause us to know God more, and thus they are indescribably wonderful.

One of the most wonderful of these graces is when God removes for a moment some veil of sin and allows us to see something with His eyes instead of our own. We may not have even realized that our vision was so obscured - but then all at once everything looks different, and we know that it looks as it truly is and the way we had formerly perceived it was skewed and blurred. To compare it to something much more trivial, it is akin to putting on a pair of glasses and suddenly seeing the world without the astigmatism and myopia. Overwhelmed by joy, the heart effortlessly overflows with praise; it is impossible to contain the gratitude at being given such a grace as this, at being privileged for one brief moment to see with clearer sight. There is humility, also, in the knowledge that the vision is not born of any merit of our own, but is purely gift and grace, and in the deepened recognition of our sinfulness and of how small our relationship with God really is - but it is the humility of self-forgetfulness, not the humility of despair. With eyes newly open in Christ to some beautiful and glorious truth, we lose ourselves in Him; our whole being is colored through and through with His radiance, and His light is the joy of our hearts.

There is a strange shyness about the things we see by these graces; the sweetness is too piercing and too intimate for it to be revealed to the world as some great spiritual experience. It is like trying to tell someone the secrets you whisper with your lover - the joy is too high, the love is too great, and above all the thing itself pulls back from being told. These graces change our hearts and draw us nearer to God; they give us new eyes to see more clearly; they are the planting of seeds and the bearing of fruit in our lives; but they themselves are not known outside the heart in which they labor. They are the love-notes of our eternal Bridegroom, delighting in His Bride.

Successes and failures and grace

I tend to see life in terms of successes and failures (to the point where it can be hard for me to understand how life can be seen in any other way). For example, if I haven't read my Bible for a week, let's say, I'll think of that as a failure in my walk with Christ, and then think of myself as a failure as a follower of Christ. Conversely, if I have been praying and reading and serving and witnessing, I think of each of those things as a success, and then maybe of myself as a success because I've accomplished those things (although I can almost always find some failure to focus on). It extends down to the most trivial things, too - if I have the house looking nice and dinner on the table when Paul comes home from work on Friday, I get so happy inside because my self-evaluation tells me that I am a "good wife", but if dinner is running late or something is off, I feel like a failure because my self-evaluation tells me that I am a "bad wife". Similarly, I'll feel like a failure for showing up late to an event, or for being unclear in a conversation, or for not doing my laundry over the weekend. Everything that happens becomes a tally mark in either the column of successes or the column of failures, and then I base my feelings of self-worth on which column seems to be winning.

But you know what? This way of looking at life and of judging myself is, at its heart and in its very essence, opposed to the concept of grace. And I'm a Christian, right? And that means that at the center of my faith is the belief that I am a hopeless sinner saved by the undeserved love of a great God - in other words, the doctrine of grace, right? So how have I allowed my primary mode of operation - my dominant means of perceiving and evaluating the world around me - to set itself up in the enemy camp? My paradigm for understanding life is a bit of a traitor, apparently... it has chosen the old ways of judgment and law over the new covenant of grace in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So what does it mean to live with a worldview of grace rather than one of judgment? 

Obviously I'm not too sure, since I don't do it very well! But I think it means that instead of trying to make myself perfect to earn God's love and approval, I choose instead to rely on Him to change me and rest in the assurance of the love and acceptance He has already given me and will never take away from me. That instead of trying to overcome every obstacle with the grit of my will and the strength of my mind, I admit my need and take refuge in the One who is my shield and strong tower. That instead of basing my self-worth on what I can do for God and others, I ground my identity in what God has done for me and in who God has declared me to be.

I'm thinking this is one of those things that is easier to say than to do, but most good things are, you know? And this time at least I can start off by admitting how hard it will be for me, and by asking God for His grace and strength to make it possible :)

Discouragement and grace

It is so easy for me to become discouraged when I sin, especially when I watch myself continue in a sinful attitude or course of action in the very moment of realizing its sinfulness. If I was a good Christian, I think - if I really loved and followed God - I wouldn't be thinking or feeling or acting this way. So the fact that I sin, and do so despite the inner promptings of the Spirit and my conscience, must mean that I'm not a very good Christian at all.

But what does it mean to be a "good Christian" in the first place? After all, a Christian is one who has acknowledged his own sinfulness and utter inability to love and obey God, and who has thrown himself unreservedly on the completely undeserved grace that God offers. Our whole faith centers around this key truth: that God has redeemed us out of His own great love and mercy, not because of our merit and righteousness. Our whole concept of self-identity is founded in this statement: that we are sinners saved by grace. If we are saved by grace, it is only rational to expect that we ought to continue in grace, right? So a truly "good Christian" would be one who lives in God's grace, not expecting to achieve perfection by his own efforts, and thus not descending to the depths of despair and discouragement every time those efforts fail. In other words, it is my response to my sin even more than the sin itself that is important to my faith and the continued growth of my relationship with God.

This was brought home to me (after an evening and morning of discouragement at my own feeble attempts to live righteously) by an article I happened to stumble upon over at Ligonier Ministries (I didn't even know they had articles on their website! I now have a new treasure trove to go through!). To quote briefly:

We must resist the temptation of thinking we can stand in our own strength. We must depend on the grace of the One who said, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). If we fall, we must go to Christ, confessing our sin and hoping in His mercy. The Scriptures declare: “The righteous falls seven times and rises again” (Prov. 24:16). To fall seven times means that you have been restored six. The greatest believers are subject to great weaknesses.

It's brilliant, that line: "To fall seven times means that you have been restored six." We shouldn't expect to be able to walk without falling, because our own strength has always come up short. But we should strive to live by grace, to get up and press forward once more after each and every fall, knowing that our Lord is our strength. He will restore us and raise us up - will we try again to follow Him, or will we simmer in our self-disappointment and refuse to accept the grace He offers day by day?

Needs

There is one sense in which it is good to think about our needs - to realize we have them and that we are, thus, dependent on God for everything in our lives, regardless of how greatly we wish we could dictate and control it all ourselves. This honest recognition and admission of our needs helps us to be humble before God, and eats away at our pride.

There is another sense, however, in which it is not good to think about our needs. Meeting our needs should never be as important to us as meeting the needs of other people. I most definitely don't live up to that! But I desire to do so. To set aside my own needs (and even more, my wants disguised as needs) to focus on meeting the needs of other people in my life is a goal worth pursuing, I think.

You know the funny thing about it, though? If I don't first recognize my own need for repentance and for God's grace, I will never be able to focus thoroughly on the needs of others, because only His grace can give me that power.

Simply joy, part 1

All too often we equate following God with unpleasant duty through which we must drag our protesting selves, with tedium and dreariness from which we enviously eye the forbidden pleasures of sin. Life isn't always rainbows and roses - in fact, it is often quite full with sorrow and pain - but this caricature of what it is to follow God is so wrong and unfair that it makes me more angry than I can verbally express.

To know God is to know joy, and in His presence is fullness of joy. He pours out goodness and love over us, and crowns us with blessings far beyond what we need. Just think - the first miracle Jesus did was to turn water into wine at a wedding feast!

"This is not a case of people starving, as when in the wilderness Jesus fed them, or of disease and suffering when He in love delivered them from it. This was a simply a superfluity, a luxury; they had no wine, and what does this mean? - for it is a sign, and must signify something.

That God created man not merely that he should endure existence, that he should drag through life, but that he should rejoice; that there should be a happiness, a festivity, a gladness within him; not only that he should be reconciled to his existence and have what is needful, but that he should feel within him a music, a rhythm; that he should be able to say, It is a joy to live, He hath crowned me with loving-kindness and tender mercies" - Adolph Saphir, quoted in Earthen Vessels by Matthew Lee Anderson

Grilled cheese sandwiches and the grace of God

Shortly after we were married (so a little over a week ago :P), my husband (it's still weird saying that) and I were talking about how I'm a bit of a perfectionist, especially when it comes to myself. I deeply desire to be perfect - to accomplish every task I set for myself to the standards I set, without wasting time or effort. If I don't meet those expectations I have for myself, I can feel really bad. Like, crying uncontrollably because I slightly overcooked the grilled cheese kind of bad (it's kind of extreme...). For me, relationships fall under the umbrella of "tasks I must carry out perfectly" as well, so I'm always afraid that I've said the wrong thing or not shown enough care or not paid enough attention, and I can emotionally break down pretty easily here too.

Anyway, Paul said something about this whole situation that I thought was pretty wise, which was that even if I managed to be perfect according to my definition of perfect, I might not be doing what God wanted, because His definition of perfect might be different than mine, and His desire for my life and heart and attitude and achievements might also be different than mine. This has made me think a lot about my perfectionism. I used to tell myself that it was just fine to be so perfectionist because it just affected me - I didn't try to hold anyone else to my standards or make them feel bad or judged or anything, I just wanted to be the best I could be. But I think I took it farther than I should have, to the point where I valued meeting my own standards of perfection more than seeking God on His terms. In a way I was acting like I could make myself perfect without His grace, which will never happen. And because it can never happen, and I can tell it isn't happening, I can get really depressed, or defensive, or angry, or hopeless, depending on the moment.

I think God wants me to trust Him and receive grace from Him to get me through life, instead of trusting myself and trying to make myself perfect to win His approval and the approval of other people. That is just so hard when I want so desperately not to fail at anything, and to be able to feel like I have earned the love of other people and of God. But I could never earn His love. No one can. And what's more, He has already completely approved and accepted us through Jesus Christ, and declared us to be righteous in Him. The kind of perfection I'm striving after is nothing compared to that righteousness He's given me! So I'm not saying I'm going to change overnight here, but this is definitely something I want to keep in mind, to try to set my focus straight on seeking God even though that means I have to accept His grace instead of doing everything myself. And you know what? Maybe then I won't be so upset about the little things (like burnt grilled cheese) and I'll have more energy and enthusiasm for the things in life that really matter :)

Could You just fix me now?

Yesterday, I was angry at God. I don't think I am angry at God very often, because for me to be angry at Him means that I have decided in my own head what is right and good and loving and have judged Him for not doing that. Usually I do a better job of trusting Him - being confused and bewildered and hurt, but coming to Him for comfort rather than in anger. But I didn't want comfort yesterday. I didn't want to be held in His love or to rest in His mercy or to find strength in His grace. I just wanted Him to do what I have prayed so long that He would do (which is to get rid of the darkness and depression that I tend to struggle with).

I'm not quite as angry today but I still don't want comfort. I want change! I want my heart and my mind to be transformed, for the struggle to completely disappear so I won't have to constantly wrestle with it! And you know what? I can't do that on my own. I've tried, and I know! Fixing myself just isn't feasible, and every time I try I am left feeling more and more like a failure. So I'm dependent on God for this, and because I obviously can't control Him either I'm stuck waiting for Him to act in His timing and plan (which I know intellectually is better than mine, but I still don't like waiting!).

As I keep thinking about this, though, this one particular passage keeps coming to my mind (who knows, maybe God is trying to make me listen...). I identify with Paul when he says, "Concerning this thing (which he describes as a "messenger of Satan to buffet me") I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me." It feels a bit self-exalting to say that I identify with Paul in something but I don't mean it that way. I just want this darkness to go away forever, and I keep pleading with God to take it away, and He doesn't seem to be doing so. Maybe He wants me to learn that when He says "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness," He means it and it is true. That's a hard verse to live by, though. Sometimes I think I would much rather be fixed and not have to depend on His grace quite so much! But this idea of His strength being made perfect in my weakness - I like that part. I like the thought of His power resting on me, and His glory shining through me. So I'm going to try to keep putting my struggle in this light, whenever it feels too strong for me, and remember that His strength is there in my weakness. I don't think just reading this verse is going to fix anything, but maybe it will help encourage me to press on in faith.