* I was fortunate enough this year to hear Francis Chan and Louie Giglio speak at the Passion Conference. They spoke about developing your own theology...truly asking yourself, ok, WHAT do I believe? They encouraged us to take the Word and read it again, this time pretending that we are on a deserted island and have never heard of Jesus and have never been taught what it means to be a "Christian" in our homes or in our churches. They begged us to read the Word and see what WE got out of it and avoid checking our brains at the door when hearing what OTHERS have gotten out of it. They said that, paired with prayer, this would be the best thing that we could possibly do in our walk with the Lord.
Francis Chan got up and actually warned against taking in what he had to say as truth. He encouraged us to go back and pray about what was presented to us that day. So I did, and God showed me a few things...one of which being that I rely a LOT on what I have been taught. I tend to absorb the messages my pastors give and immediately take them in as Truth, instead of processing the information I am being given and having my own original thoughts about it. Learning from the experiences of others is definatley helpful, I am not saying it isn't, but what could be more helpful is learning from experiences of your own. And since I have been applying this to my life, specifically to my faith, I have truly been blessed and my eyes have been opened to a lot.
With that being said...I have been studying the book of Romans for the past couple of weeks...the Lord has recently been leading me from thought to thought...and these are the latest workings of my mind...
***************
"...Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good." (Gal 2:16 Msg)
Okay. What do you get out of that statement?
Hmmm. Let's see...
You cant please God by improving yourself...
Believing and trusting in Jesus sets you right before God...
Trying to be good does not...
Seems simple enough, right? :)
Well, I've noticed that, as humans, we tend to complicate what was originally meant to require little effort. For some reason it is difficult for us to comprehend that something can just be simple, without overanalyzing and elaborating it. If anyone is guilty of this, I am, especially regarding the way I live out my faith in Jesus. I tend to ask questions like:
"How can I show God I love Him?"
"How can I please my Heavenly Father?"
"What can I do?"
Of course, those inquiries are well and fine. I'm sure God is by no means disappointed when He sees His children making an effort to show appreciation and love for Him. (He probably thinks it's cute.) I overlooked something, however. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. I tend to forget that accepting and resting in God's love and what He has done for me (through Jesus) is the best thing I can "do" for Him. I have complicated the simplicity of what it means to love God. It's not really about what WE do at all. Its about embracing what HE has done for us.
Something that comes to mind when I think about my previous efforts to show God I love him is the relationship between a young child and his father. (Although somewhat cliché, it always helps me to think of a preschool aged kid and his daddy.) The father's love for his child is so overwhelming, so great, that nothing his child could do could change it. No matter how many times his baby misbehaves, no matter how many fingerpaintings he recieves...that father's love for his child remains the same...neither growing nor fading. And can you imagine a toddler sitting down and contemplating how she can show her daddy that she loves him? She doesn't. She lives carefree in her father's love for her...
We, obviously, are God's children. There is absolutely nothing we can do to cause His love for us to increase or decrease, and there is no need for us to "prove" our love to Him...He knows what is inside the heart HE created, does He not? Like God says through Paul in the book of Romans, it is not about what WE do. God doesn't react to what we do. We respond to what God does. (Romans 3:27-28. Msg) And the response God is looking for from us to what he has done is simple (which means that humans complicate it): embrace His love and trust Him to set us right with Him.
To be honest, this whole concept is so hard for me to accept. Ever since I accepted Jesus into my life I have constantly entertained the "What Can I Do?" mentality. I feel like our relationship is close and intimate when I feel "right" with God (when I am consistant in prayer, when I am least tempted to sin, when I am whole-heartedly "commited.") However, if I am inconsistant in prayer, get distracted by wordly things, give in to temptation, I don't feel "right" with Him at all.
At one point I truly believed that my intimacy with God depended on MY day to day actions and my commitment to him. I believed that if I failed to commit that God would not grant me the intimacy that I so desired with Him. That was heartbreaking for me because I knew that, being human, I am not very dependable, and I am far from perfect. Even so, I began the constant battle and angst with myself of striving to be "commited." I had a list of things to do to show God how commited I was: I made sure to spend a specific amount of time with Him every day...I fasted... I meticulously followed suggestions that were given to me about "boundaries"...and much more...all because I was scared I would lose intimacy with God if I didn't do all of these things to show Him my commitment.
God is most present when we are at our weakest points (for example, when we dont feel "right" with Him due to our "lack of commitment.") Isn't it peculiar that when He is MOST present in our lives we feel the furthest away from Him? I remember reading that promise during a tough time and thinking "Ok God, so if you are most present when I am at my weakest, WHY CAN'T I FEEL YOU HERE???" Similar to Job's friends, and with the best intentions, I am willing to bet that some people would try to console me and spit out what they have been taught (because I myself have done so, to myself...): "Well, God is not promiscuous, and you dont have the intimacy with Him that you desire because of your lack of commitment to Him."
I am learning, however. I have always believed that nothing I do can seperate me from the love of my Father, but for some reason I seperated Love and Intimacy in my mind. However, the Word says that ONCE (yes, I guess that prayer you prayed a while ago does count as commitment...simple...so hard to comprehend...) we accept Jesus into our lives, His Spirit lives and breathes within us and is in constant communion with our spirits, and according to the Word, this is the most intimate part of our lives. So by trusting and accepting Jesus, who is LOVE, into our lives, His spirit comes to dwell within us, and we are in turn granted INTIMACY with the Father through Him. If we can't be seperated from His love, how can we feel seperated from intimacy from Him? These are all questions that have been circulating in my brain for the past couple of months, and I continue to learn...I by no means have it all figured out. But I trust that God does, so I go to Him for lessons.
God is teaching me that in Christ I am always right with Him. (Romans 5:9 Msg, Romans 7:25 Msg.) At first, I couldn't believe this- I definatley didnt FEEL right with God when I felt as though I lacked commitment to Him. He has been patient with me, however, repetitively leading me back to His Word and making it clear to me that I CAN believe it. I have learned that the reason I feel "far" from Him or "not right" with Him, contrary to what I believed, is not by His doing, it is by my OWN. ...when I don't feel intimate with Him it is NOT because he cuts me off from Himself (His Spirit took residence in me when I first committed myself to Him by accepting Him into my life, so therefore intimacy with Him is always accessible.) ***He has shown me that my reason for believing there is a direct correlation between my commitment to God and my intimacy with Him (apart from the fact that it is what I have been taught) was that when I felt "right" with Him it was because I was not clouded by the guilt that comes with feeling the furthest from Him, therefore I was able to feel more "intimate" with Him (his voice was clear...I could easily communicate with Him back and forth...at times I literally could feel his hand on my heart or His embrace...etc.)
When I feel seperated from intimacy with God it IS usually because of my lack of commitment to Him, because, for me, GUILT always follows my lack of commitment. I stop resting in His love and start allowing guilt to form a fog between Him and me. In the fog of my guilt it is almost impossible to see Him reaching out to me. I become distracted by my guilt, so I stop listening for His voice. Instead, I focus my attention on thinking of the things I need to do in order to get "right" with Him again. I cover my own ears and eyes by focusing on what I have done or what I can do instead of what He has done. When the shift of attention goes from God's actions to my actions, I feel the furthest from Him. Meanwhile, He is right there... speaking to me, reaching out to me...more present than ever in my weakness.
If, instead of focusing on trying to stay "right" with my Father, I simply embraced what He has done for me and trusted Him to set things right, I would never feel "far" from Him at all. That thought is reassuring, considering that feeling seperated from God, to me, is worse than suffocating. I'd pray, and not feel that intimate connection (again, not because He was holding out on me but because I was blinded by the fog of guilt I had created between us,) which in turn caused me to pray even less, because, along with being discouraged by speaking to Him and not hearing His response or feeling his comforting embrace, I dreaded the feeling of inadequacy consumed me when approaching Someone so Holy when I myself felt the exact opposite. It would take going to church and participating in heart wrenching worship, or "re-committing"...to feel "right" with God again. That is not what He intended my relationship with Him to be like. And it is ALL because I complicated a SIMPLE concept....
If staying right with God truly depended on our actions we would all be in for some angst. Overtime, humans have proved that we are completely incapable of living out the life God has willed and created us to live. (Romans 3:22-24 Msg.) But the amazing thing is, Jesus did it for us on the cross. He restored us to where we were always supposed to be: in right standing with our Father. I, however, have complicated the beauty of the simplicity of the cross. I was in a constant battle with myself, relying on my own strength to live out a life that would be pleasing to God in order to be in right standing with Him. Of course, I would ask for God's help, but ultimately I believed it was up to me and my commitment.
The Word is filled with guidance from God through Paul to the new followers of The Way that felt as though they needed to take it into their own hands in order to follow God correctly. They were struggling with being slaves to "the Law." But Paul encouraged them to accept God's love and what Christ had done for them and live in the freedom that He died to give them. It is a similar situation today. We have grasped the concept of being free from the law of Moses, however, followers of Christ, especially those fairly new to the faith like myself, tend to make strenuous efforts to please God, to show God their commitment and love. Doing these things can be healthy if done in the right mindset, but they also have the potential to hold someone captive just as the Law held our brothers and sisters captive in the past. What is great about the Word is that it is alive, and relevant, even in our current situation. Through His Word, God encourages us not to rely on our own strength but to simply rest in His love and HIS actions, with the same exact words that were used to put the Romans, Galatians, and many others at ease.
One of my favorite verses is in Romans, chapter 4: " If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your payment; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you workekd—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer Gift." (That..s the Message. I love this translation.) I had read this passage before. I had read lots of passages that encouraged me to please God by resting in His love and trusting Him. I just couldn..t wrap my head around such simple concepts. But the Word continues to reassure me.
Something that I find amazing in this freedom we have been granted with accepting the love of Christ into our lives is the effect it has on us. By accepting His love, we can't help but pour it out onto others. By accepting the fact that no matter what we do we are never seperated from the love of our Father, it makes it easier to forgive others when they do us wrong. We love as we are first loved, we forgive as we have been forgiven. Then the Word truly is alive, as we take God-breathed words and live them out loud with Jesus' help.
Also, once we rely on God to set us right with Him instead of trying to do it ourselves, we are no longer slaves to keeping rules and getting by on our own strength; we can finally breathe and TRULY rest. However, we don't need to go to the other extreme and destroy the very freedom we were given by offering ourselves to living however our flesh desires. Once we have fully understood and begin to live out the simplicity of embracing God and what He has done, one could certainly argue the need to follow any "rules" or "lists" to show commitment at all, but it is quite the contrary. Constantly giving in to selfish desires puts us right back in captivity, again making us slaves to our own will and therefore destroying the freedom that the blood of Jesus has granted us. The more we act and live acording to our own selfish whims, the less freedom we have.
So where does that leave us?
Where is the middle ground between being captive to rules, relying on your own actions to determine whether or not you feel right with God....
....and being captive to your own selfish desires?
I believe the middle ground lies in the love of God.
And when we can rest in His love, we are set right.
Don't take me wrong,I am not encouraging anyone to become a hippy with an "anything goes" philosophy of "Hey, God loves me so I can do whatever I want...freedommmm (cough, cough)." Making an effort to live a life Jesus would be proud of is admirable and I believe it is the right thing to do. I think doing so is a natural response of appreciation and love for our Father and what He has done for us. We call ourselves followers of Christ for a reason. We want to be just like Him, and we make considerable efforts to follow His lead. As a result, we should follow the example that Jesus set and embrace and trust God to set things right. This way, when we fail (and we WILL fail) to live up to the life that Christ lived on earth, we have the love of God personified as Jesus on the cross as a cushion to break our fall. No more worrying. No more "starting over." No more pressure. Our Daddy has taken care of everything for us. So embrace Him, live carefree in His love. :)
"How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love." (Ephesians 1:3-5 Msg)
Francis Chan got up and actually warned against taking in what he had to say as truth. He encouraged us to go back and pray about what was presented to us that day. So I did, and God showed me a few things...one of which being that I rely a LOT on what I have been taught. I tend to absorb the messages my pastors give and immediately take them in as Truth, instead of processing the information I am being given and having my own original thoughts about it. Learning from the experiences of others is definatley helpful, I am not saying it isn't, but what could be more helpful is learning from experiences of your own. And since I have been applying this to my life, specifically to my faith, I have truly been blessed and my eyes have been opened to a lot.
With that being said...I have been studying the book of Romans for the past couple of weeks...the Lord has recently been leading me from thought to thought...and these are the latest workings of my mind...
***************
"...Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good." (Gal 2:16 Msg)
Okay. What do you get out of that statement?
Hmmm. Let's see...
You cant please God by improving yourself...
Believing and trusting in Jesus sets you right before God...
Trying to be good does not...
Seems simple enough, right? :)
Well, I've noticed that, as humans, we tend to complicate what was originally meant to require little effort. For some reason it is difficult for us to comprehend that something can just be simple, without overanalyzing and elaborating it. If anyone is guilty of this, I am, especially regarding the way I live out my faith in Jesus. I tend to ask questions like:
"How can I show God I love Him?"
"How can I please my Heavenly Father?"
"What can I do?"
Of course, those inquiries are well and fine. I'm sure God is by no means disappointed when He sees His children making an effort to show appreciation and love for Him. (He probably thinks it's cute.) I overlooked something, however. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. I tend to forget that accepting and resting in God's love and what He has done for me (through Jesus) is the best thing I can "do" for Him. I have complicated the simplicity of what it means to love God. It's not really about what WE do at all. Its about embracing what HE has done for us.
Something that comes to mind when I think about my previous efforts to show God I love him is the relationship between a young child and his father. (Although somewhat cliché, it always helps me to think of a preschool aged kid and his daddy.) The father's love for his child is so overwhelming, so great, that nothing his child could do could change it. No matter how many times his baby misbehaves, no matter how many fingerpaintings he recieves...that father's love for his child remains the same...neither growing nor fading. And can you imagine a toddler sitting down and contemplating how she can show her daddy that she loves him? She doesn't. She lives carefree in her father's love for her...
We, obviously, are God's children. There is absolutely nothing we can do to cause His love for us to increase or decrease, and there is no need for us to "prove" our love to Him...He knows what is inside the heart HE created, does He not? Like God says through Paul in the book of Romans, it is not about what WE do. God doesn't react to what we do. We respond to what God does. (Romans 3:27-28. Msg) And the response God is looking for from us to what he has done is simple (which means that humans complicate it): embrace His love and trust Him to set us right with Him.
To be honest, this whole concept is so hard for me to accept. Ever since I accepted Jesus into my life I have constantly entertained the "What Can I Do?" mentality. I feel like our relationship is close and intimate when I feel "right" with God (when I am consistant in prayer, when I am least tempted to sin, when I am whole-heartedly "commited.") However, if I am inconsistant in prayer, get distracted by wordly things, give in to temptation, I don't feel "right" with Him at all.
At one point I truly believed that my intimacy with God depended on MY day to day actions and my commitment to him. I believed that if I failed to commit that God would not grant me the intimacy that I so desired with Him. That was heartbreaking for me because I knew that, being human, I am not very dependable, and I am far from perfect. Even so, I began the constant battle and angst with myself of striving to be "commited." I had a list of things to do to show God how commited I was: I made sure to spend a specific amount of time with Him every day...I fasted... I meticulously followed suggestions that were given to me about "boundaries"...and much more...all because I was scared I would lose intimacy with God if I didn't do all of these things to show Him my commitment.
God is most present when we are at our weakest points (for example, when we dont feel "right" with Him due to our "lack of commitment.") Isn't it peculiar that when He is MOST present in our lives we feel the furthest away from Him? I remember reading that promise during a tough time and thinking "Ok God, so if you are most present when I am at my weakest, WHY CAN'T I FEEL YOU HERE???" Similar to Job's friends, and with the best intentions, I am willing to bet that some people would try to console me and spit out what they have been taught (because I myself have done so, to myself...): "Well, God is not promiscuous, and you dont have the intimacy with Him that you desire because of your lack of commitment to Him."
I am learning, however. I have always believed that nothing I do can seperate me from the love of my Father, but for some reason I seperated Love and Intimacy in my mind. However, the Word says that ONCE (yes, I guess that prayer you prayed a while ago does count as commitment...simple...so hard to comprehend...) we accept Jesus into our lives, His Spirit lives and breathes within us and is in constant communion with our spirits, and according to the Word, this is the most intimate part of our lives. So by trusting and accepting Jesus, who is LOVE, into our lives, His spirit comes to dwell within us, and we are in turn granted INTIMACY with the Father through Him. If we can't be seperated from His love, how can we feel seperated from intimacy from Him? These are all questions that have been circulating in my brain for the past couple of months, and I continue to learn...I by no means have it all figured out. But I trust that God does, so I go to Him for lessons.
God is teaching me that in Christ I am always right with Him. (Romans 5:9 Msg, Romans 7:25 Msg.) At first, I couldn't believe this- I definatley didnt FEEL right with God when I felt as though I lacked commitment to Him. He has been patient with me, however, repetitively leading me back to His Word and making it clear to me that I CAN believe it. I have learned that the reason I feel "far" from Him or "not right" with Him, contrary to what I believed, is not by His doing, it is by my OWN. ...when I don't feel intimate with Him it is NOT because he cuts me off from Himself (His Spirit took residence in me when I first committed myself to Him by accepting Him into my life, so therefore intimacy with Him is always accessible.) ***He has shown me that my reason for believing there is a direct correlation between my commitment to God and my intimacy with Him (apart from the fact that it is what I have been taught) was that when I felt "right" with Him it was because I was not clouded by the guilt that comes with feeling the furthest from Him, therefore I was able to feel more "intimate" with Him (his voice was clear...I could easily communicate with Him back and forth...at times I literally could feel his hand on my heart or His embrace...etc.)
When I feel seperated from intimacy with God it IS usually because of my lack of commitment to Him, because, for me, GUILT always follows my lack of commitment. I stop resting in His love and start allowing guilt to form a fog between Him and me. In the fog of my guilt it is almost impossible to see Him reaching out to me. I become distracted by my guilt, so I stop listening for His voice. Instead, I focus my attention on thinking of the things I need to do in order to get "right" with Him again. I cover my own ears and eyes by focusing on what I have done or what I can do instead of what He has done. When the shift of attention goes from God's actions to my actions, I feel the furthest from Him. Meanwhile, He is right there... speaking to me, reaching out to me...more present than ever in my weakness.
If, instead of focusing on trying to stay "right" with my Father, I simply embraced what He has done for me and trusted Him to set things right, I would never feel "far" from Him at all. That thought is reassuring, considering that feeling seperated from God, to me, is worse than suffocating. I'd pray, and not feel that intimate connection (again, not because He was holding out on me but because I was blinded by the fog of guilt I had created between us,) which in turn caused me to pray even less, because, along with being discouraged by speaking to Him and not hearing His response or feeling his comforting embrace, I dreaded the feeling of inadequacy consumed me when approaching Someone so Holy when I myself felt the exact opposite. It would take going to church and participating in heart wrenching worship, or "re-committing"...to feel "right" with God again. That is not what He intended my relationship with Him to be like. And it is ALL because I complicated a SIMPLE concept....
If staying right with God truly depended on our actions we would all be in for some angst. Overtime, humans have proved that we are completely incapable of living out the life God has willed and created us to live. (Romans 3:22-24 Msg.) But the amazing thing is, Jesus did it for us on the cross. He restored us to where we were always supposed to be: in right standing with our Father. I, however, have complicated the beauty of the simplicity of the cross. I was in a constant battle with myself, relying on my own strength to live out a life that would be pleasing to God in order to be in right standing with Him. Of course, I would ask for God's help, but ultimately I believed it was up to me and my commitment.
The Word is filled with guidance from God through Paul to the new followers of The Way that felt as though they needed to take it into their own hands in order to follow God correctly. They were struggling with being slaves to "the Law." But Paul encouraged them to accept God's love and what Christ had done for them and live in the freedom that He died to give them. It is a similar situation today. We have grasped the concept of being free from the law of Moses, however, followers of Christ, especially those fairly new to the faith like myself, tend to make strenuous efforts to please God, to show God their commitment and love. Doing these things can be healthy if done in the right mindset, but they also have the potential to hold someone captive just as the Law held our brothers and sisters captive in the past. What is great about the Word is that it is alive, and relevant, even in our current situation. Through His Word, God encourages us not to rely on our own strength but to simply rest in His love and HIS actions, with the same exact words that were used to put the Romans, Galatians, and many others at ease.
One of my favorite verses is in Romans, chapter 4: " If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your payment; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you workekd—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer Gift." (That..s the Message. I love this translation.) I had read this passage before. I had read lots of passages that encouraged me to please God by resting in His love and trusting Him. I just couldn..t wrap my head around such simple concepts. But the Word continues to reassure me.
Something that I find amazing in this freedom we have been granted with accepting the love of Christ into our lives is the effect it has on us. By accepting His love, we can't help but pour it out onto others. By accepting the fact that no matter what we do we are never seperated from the love of our Father, it makes it easier to forgive others when they do us wrong. We love as we are first loved, we forgive as we have been forgiven. Then the Word truly is alive, as we take God-breathed words and live them out loud with Jesus' help.
Also, once we rely on God to set us right with Him instead of trying to do it ourselves, we are no longer slaves to keeping rules and getting by on our own strength; we can finally breathe and TRULY rest. However, we don't need to go to the other extreme and destroy the very freedom we were given by offering ourselves to living however our flesh desires. Once we have fully understood and begin to live out the simplicity of embracing God and what He has done, one could certainly argue the need to follow any "rules" or "lists" to show commitment at all, but it is quite the contrary. Constantly giving in to selfish desires puts us right back in captivity, again making us slaves to our own will and therefore destroying the freedom that the blood of Jesus has granted us. The more we act and live acording to our own selfish whims, the less freedom we have.
So where does that leave us?
Where is the middle ground between being captive to rules, relying on your own actions to determine whether or not you feel right with God....
....and being captive to your own selfish desires?
I believe the middle ground lies in the love of God.
And when we can rest in His love, we are set right.
Don't take me wrong,I am not encouraging anyone to become a hippy with an "anything goes" philosophy of "Hey, God loves me so I can do whatever I want...freedommmm (cough, cough)." Making an effort to live a life Jesus would be proud of is admirable and I believe it is the right thing to do. I think doing so is a natural response of appreciation and love for our Father and what He has done for us. We call ourselves followers of Christ for a reason. We want to be just like Him, and we make considerable efforts to follow His lead. As a result, we should follow the example that Jesus set and embrace and trust God to set things right. This way, when we fail (and we WILL fail) to live up to the life that Christ lived on earth, we have the love of God personified as Jesus on the cross as a cushion to break our fall. No more worrying. No more "starting over." No more pressure. Our Daddy has taken care of everything for us. So embrace Him, live carefree in His love. :)
"How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love." (Ephesians 1:3-5 Msg)
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