The Agonizing Gulf

This week I was struck by words from the book Strength to Love, By Martin Luther King, Jr. “One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying.  A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves….  This strange dichotomy, this agonizing gulf between the ought and the is, represents the tragic theme of man’s earthly pilgrimage.”

We say one thing and do another.  We know what is right, but do the wrong.  This quotation sounds a lot like Romans 7 verse 19, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

In my early life I was painfully aware of what I think of as my core set of weaknesses:  Self-pity, arrogance and impatience.  I was prone to melt-downs and blow-ups.  I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that I grew up believing my behavior determined my salvation, and when I examined my behavior, I lived in a state of fear, guilt and despair as far as my salvation was concerned. 

Then, in my early thirties I discovered grace.  I learned that I was not saved on the basis of my obedience, but solely on the basis of what Jesus Christ had done for me.  Once I was thoroughly convinced of that truth I let go of the need to earn my salvation, but I expected that, over time, I would become a better person.

As time passed, however, I realized that as far as my core set of weaknesses were concerned, I had made little to no progress.  I knew now that my salvation wasn’t dependent on conquering those issues, but, frankly, I was ashamed of my continued failures!  I wanted to change.  This seemed like a worthy goal, so I rededicated myself to obedience. I pleaded with God to change me.  I tried hard to change.  I confess that I even pretended to change; but that worked for only so long, and then I either melted-down or blew up.  I was embarrassed and discouraged. The same old feelings of fear, guilt and despair, which used to plague me before I learned about grace, began to torment me again.  How was it possible to have been a Christian for so long, I wondered, and to have made so little progress in those areas?

In one of his blogs, Tullian Tchividjian borrows an illustration from Jack Miller regarding a similar struggle of Samuel Johnson, an 18^th century writer and moralist.  Taken from Johnson’s diary and prayer journal, Jack gives us a record–through the years–of Johnson’s life-long resolutions, failures, and frustrations:

1738: He wrote, “Oh Lord, enable me to redeem the time which I have spent in sloth.”

1757: (19 years later) “Oh mighty God, enable me to shake off sloth and redeem the time misspent in idleness and sin by diligent application of the days yet remaining.”

1759: (2 years later) “Enable me to shake off idleness and sloth.”

1761: “I have resolved until I have resolved that I am afraid to resolve again.”

1764: “My indolence since my last reception of the sacrament has sunk into grossest sluggishness. My purpose is from this time to avoid idleness and to rise early.”

1764: (5 months later) He resolves to rise early, “not later than 6 if I can.”

1765: “I purpose to rise at 8 because, though, I shall not rise early it will be much earlier than I now rise for I often lie until 2.”

1769: “I am not yet in a state to form any resolutions. I purpose and hope to rise early in the morning, by 8, and by degrees, at 6.”

1775: “When I look back upon resolution of improvement and amendments which have, year after year, been made and broken, why do I yet try to resolve again? I try because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal.” He resolves again to rise at 8.

1781: (3 years before his death) “I will not despair, help me, help me, oh my God.” He resolves to rise at 8 or sooner to avoid idleness.

I completely identified with Mr. Johnson’s heart! Thankfully, in my near despair, God led me to the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 12 verses 7-9.  “To keep me from becoming conceited,” Paul says, “…there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.  Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

Whatever Paul’s thorn in the flesh actually was doesn’t matter.   God had been close to Paul and taught him many things, but because of that Paul was in danger of becoming conceited.  So, God sent him something which resulted in his being humbled.  Whatever it was, Satan used it to torment Paul and Paul wanted it to go away.  He did not want to feel weak! He wanted to be strong and competent!

I began to think about why I was so desperate to change.  Was it really about my desire to please God, or was it actually about my own embarrassment because I hadn’t changed?  Was it about God’s glory or my own?

God uses our weaknesses to keep us humble and to keep us honest.  We squirm uncomfortably, and beg him to remove our weaknesses, but instead he says, ‘My grace is sufficient for you.  It’s not about your goodness; it’s about my goodness toward you. Neither is it about your failures or inconsistencies; your melt downs or sloth (fill in your own weaknesses here); it’s about the fact that my grace has already provided all you need. Your weaknesses are an opportunity for me to demonstrate my power on your behalf. 

Paul’s response was, ‘Well, if that’s the case, then I’m just going to boast about my weaknesses, so that your power can rest on me!’

God may or may not allow me to see growth in my core areas of weakness. Who knows, maybe I have grown and just can’t see it; but that is not the point.  What God wants is for me to have a humble understanding of my need for him; gratitude for what he has done and continues to do for me; love for him, his word and his presence; increasing joy and peace as I rest in him; and growth in my desire to share with others the news of his amazing grace which he offers us especially because of the “agonizing gulf between the ought and the is”. 

FRUIT

“…The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”  Galatians 5:22

"I'm not a very good Christian".  I recently heard someone utter those words, and it made me stop and consider what they were really saying.  In my last blog, Which Lens,  I talked about two different ways of viewing the world, Action/Consequence and Death/Resurrection. 

Briefly, Action/Consequence is our natural, default way of thinking. It is about me--what I do and what I expect to achieve or receive as a result. When Action/Consequence is my world view, my life is about seeking my own gratification, recognition, glory, honor and praise. As a result, I will always be comparing and competing which leads to judging and often condemning others or myself. This way of thinking applies to everything in our lives, including religion, and leads to a distorted view of God.

Death/Resurrection, on the other hand, is a completely unnatural, counterintuitive way of thinking. It is a point of view which only comes to us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and without his help we quickly revert back to Action/Consequence thinking. It is all about God and what he has done for us through his son, Jesus Christ.  It recognizes that we were dead (Ephesians 2:1), but because of him we are now alive (Ephesians 2:5) and that we are all alike in our unworthiness and need.  Because of that, there is no basis for comparing or competing; judging or condemning.  In this world view, all recognition, glory, honor and praise goes to God alone.

With those two points of view in mind, I'd like to explore the concept of what it means to be a "good Christian", using John chapter 15 verses 1-4 as a framework: 
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.  You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.  Remain in me, and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”

Let me begin by saying that, because Action/Consequence is our default way of thinking, it will also be the default lens we use when reading scripture.  Action/Consequence is natural, but Death/Resurrection is unnatural, and is revealed, or given to us, only by the Holy Spirit. When scripture is read through the lens of Action/Consequence, the reader comes away with a distorted Me-centered understanding of what was said.

In these verses, Action/Consequence will immediately focus on the words, “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit.”  Everything else in that passage will be secondary to those words and the understanding of the rest will be colored by how Action/Consequence interprets those words. 

I remember, as a young girl, sitting in a Bible class discussing what the word “fruit” represented in this passage.  Some thought it referred to the number of people you “saved”.  If you weren’t sharing your faith and no one was saved, God would cut you off.  Others argued that fruit represented obedience in general.  If you weren’t living a life of obedience, i.e. obeying all of God's commands, you would be cut off.

The sense of this passage, then, through the eyes of Action/Consequence is, “You better be good, or God will cut you off.  The only way you can be good is if I help you, so you better stay connected to me and produce fruit, or else.” When understood this way, these verses incite fear.  The fear is then used as motivation to devise plans for daily devotions, etc. in order to keep yourself connected to the vine, and to busy yourself trying to be the best you can be, so that God won’t chop you off. 

Now, let’s look at these verses again, through the lens of Death/Resurrection.  Jesus is the one speaking, and he begins by saying, “I am the true Vine”.  If there was no vine, there would be no branches, because the vine produces the branches. The vine is the source of life for the branches.  Jesus, and all that he represents, is the true Vine. 

Because we were dead in our transgressions and sins, without hope, God sent his Son to live a perfect life, which record he then applies to us; and to take our record of wrongs and pay the full penalty for them in our place. We stand, in Christ, on the other side of the grave, with our debt marked “Paid in full”.  Romans 8:1 says there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For those who are in Christ, all condemnation is gone.  Jesus took it all. To be “in Christ”, is the same thing as being “in the Vine.”

We are connected to the Vine when we live out of the comfort, relief and assurance of all that Jesus has done on our behalf.  As we allow the implications of the gift to permeate our beings something inside of us shifts.  We stop striving to prove ourselves; stop trying to earn or deserve. We are humbled at the understanding of our undeservedness. An immense gratitude fills our hearts, and from that humble gratitude flows love for the one who has given us everything.  As we begin to comprehend the fact that, despite our unworthiness, we are dearly loved and accepted by God, a peace, unlike anything we have ever known, comes over us.  With the realization that, in Jesus, our sins will never be counted against us, a joy which cannot be contained bubbles out of us.  Without the weight of expectations hanging over our heads, we find ourselves becoming more patient, with ourselves and with others. Because of the kindness God has shown to us, we are also kinder, to ourselves and others.  When we know that our standing with God isn’t dependent on our own goodness, we find ourselves wanting to be better people.  The doubts and fears which used to plague us fade away, and we are full of faith in the One who has done everything for us.  We begin to desire to live into the way God already sees us, and humbly ask for his help in controlling the things which have controlled us in the past.  

Did you notice that I just covered all of the fruits of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22?  The natural outgrowth of being “in the vine”, is fruit.  The branch does not worry and strive to produce the fruit.  The fruit will grow simply because the branch is attached to the vine. 

Let’s look at verse four again, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”  To remain in Jesus means to rest in him; to rest in his completed work for you; to know that you have nothing to prove.  As you remain “in Christ” or “in the Vine”, he will remain in you; continually reminding you of his love for you and all that he has done for you and is going to do in the ages to come.

If a person says he is attached to the Vine, but is still worrying and striving to “produce fruit”, he is living from Action/Consequence, and is not attached to the Vine. He may be producing good works, but it is not fruit.  The gardener is looking for fruit.

When someone says they are not a very good Christian, they are, most likely, thinking in Action/Consequence terms.  In reality, Christians are simply people who have come to realize the utter impossibility of ever being good enough to escape God’s judgment and punishment and have humbly and gratefully accepted God’s amazing offer to give Jesus the punishment which we deserve, and to give us Jesus’ perfect record which we don’t deserve.  Squarely facing our true condition and then accepting our belovedness because of Christ is what frees us, albeit imperfectly, to live a fruitful life.  

WHICH LENS?

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe….” Ephesians 1:18-19

Recently I have been working with a concept that has proven to be an incredibly helpful tool for me, not only in my study of Scripture, but in my life in general, and I want to share it with you in the hope that it will be useful for you as well.  Although I have made it my own, the idea is as old as Scripture and has been expressed in many ways by many others over the centuries.

I maintain that we view all of life – our circumstances, friendships, love relationships, the authority figures in our lives and even God and Scripture – through one of two lenses, which I have called Action/Consequence and Death/Resurrection.  Let me explain what I mean.

I see Action/Consequence as being our natural, default way of viewing the world. ‘If I do this, I will get that.’ ‘If you do this, in relation to me, you will get that.’  Consequences, of course, can be either positive or negative.  For example, if I’m nice, people will like me.  If you’re a jerk to me, you will not like how I am to you.  If I work hard, my boss will notice me.  If I slack off, my boss will notice me, too, but in a different way!

The Action/Consequence model, then, is about my expectations; about what I believe I deserve in response to my actions, based on my perception of justice or fairness.  Someone once told me that we were created to live in a perfect world, but all that remains is our expectation of it in relation to ourselves.  When I put forth a positive effort, my expectation is that I will be rewarded.  If I am not rewarded, I feel that I have not been treated fairly. I do not, however, necessarily have that same sense of fairness when it comes to rewarding your positive actions; but, if your actions negatively impact me in some way, I do have a strong sense of justice in regard to the punishment I think you should receive!

Because this is our natural way of viewing the world, it is also our default way of understanding religion.  When Action/Consequence is applied to religion it will always be about me and my doing – ‘If I do this, I will receive that.’  We see this in all world religions.  When it is applied to Christianity it says, ‘If I do this/don’t do this, I will go to heaven.  If I do this/don’t do this, I will go to hell.  If we believe that we are the ones going to heaven, we will have feelings of self-righteousness and superiority.  We will look down on and judge those we feel are not living in a way that is worthy of heaven, or at least as worthy as we are.  On the other hand, if we want to go to heaven, but believe we are the ones deserving of hell, we will live in fear, despair, guilt and shame.  Both groups operate under the assumption that their salvation is won or lost based upon their actions.

Sadly, many churches which call themselves Christian, under the guise of honoring God, preach only the message of Action/Consequence.  You will hear merely a sentence or two in passing about Jesus; the idea of his dying for our sins is used only as a springboard for the real emphasis, which is about me and what I am to do.

Action/Consequence is Me centered.  It focuses on what I can achieve or gain.  It compares and competes, judges and condemns; it is tit for tat, eye for an eye, dog eat dog; it seeks gratification, recognition, glory, honor and praise for me, even at the expense of others.

The second way of viewing the world is Death/Resurrection.  This way of thinking is not natural to us; in fact, it is so completely counter intuitive that it seems upside down and backwards to the way we naturally think.  It is a point of view that comes only through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and without his help we quickly lose the concept and revert to Action/Consequence thinking.  Whereas Action/Consequence applies to everything in life, and therefore extends to religion; the Death/Resurrection concept applies first to our understanding of our relationship to God, and then extends to our view of everything else in our lives. 

Death/Resurrection has nothing to do with my actions and achievements; it is all and only about the actions of someone else on my behalf:  ‘Because of what Jesus did for me, I will live.’

To illustrate what I mean, I refer you to the book of Ephesians, Chapter 2, verses 1-10.  Verse 1 begins, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world….”  First of all, what does Paul say was our condition?  Pretty sick?  Nearly dead? No, we were dead; no sign of life. When you are dead, how much can you do to save yourself?  The only hope for a dead person is resurrection, and that certainly must come from a source outside of you.

Secondly, when does Paul say we were dead?  When we “followed the ways of this world”.  Of course, “the ways of this world” can mean the list of sinful acts our minds go to when we read verses like this, or those words can refer to the default ‘way’ of the world—described as Action/Consequence above.

Verse 3 continues, “All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.” Again, the cravings, desires and thoughts of our sinful natures are for our own gratification, recognition, glory, honor and praise. 

Then verse 3 goes on to say, “Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath”.  Along with everyone else, we deserved God’s punishment, or his wrath, to be poured out on us; not so much because of our sinful acts, but rather due to the fallen nature from which those acts came.

To sum up our condition as described in verses 1-3, we were dead, waiting for God’s final judgment, condemnation and wrath, with no ability to help ourselves in any way; a seemingly hopeless situation!

Thankfully, the passage continues in verses 4 and 5, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” That is the heart of Death/Resurrection! Because of God’s love, and God’s love alone, we were dead and then made alive with Christ!

The next verses explain more fully what God actually did for us, and why he did it, verse 6, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…” Where are we already seated as a result of having been raised with Christ? With him in heaven!   As surely as you’re seated on your couch or chair at this moment, in Christ, you are already seated in heaven!  Not because you earned the right or deserved to be there, since you were dead and unable to do anything, but simply because of God’s great love and mercy!

 And, why did he do this for us? Verse 7 says, “…in order that, in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”  Action/Consequence thinking would expect the verse to say he raised us up so that we could do something in return for his kindness; but, instead, it says God raised us up so that he, for all of the coming ages, could show the incomparable riches of his grace to us! Instead of telling us what he expects us to do for him, he tells us that he has only begun to shower us with his incredible riches!

In verses 8 and 9, Paul makes sure that we understand there is no room for us to claim we have earned any of this; he says again, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” 

In the Death/Resurrection model, God is clearly the only one who deserves glory! We must come to realize that we, and all of humanity, are on the same level playing field; we are all alike in our unworthiness and need.  There is no basis for comparing and competing, judging and condemning. Whatever we have, we have received as a gift. We bring nothing to the table but our need, and who would brag about that?

I know some of you are uncomfortably asking, ‘Isn’t there anything that I’m supposed to do?’ Let’s look carefully at the end of verse 9 and then verse 10 to see how Paul addresses that issue, “…not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship…”  We have nothing to boast about because we are God’s workmanship.  We are not our own workmanship. We are not intended to be self-made men and women who must pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps! 

Verse 10 goes on to say, “…we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus…” In this Death/Resurrection status we are being created, by God.  We do not create ourselves; He creates us.  And how is he fashioning us, creating us? By firmly grounding us in the truth that everything we need, he has already done for us through his son, Jesus Christ!  As we humbly begin to accept and believe this incredible truth, our hearts respond with a gratitude and love that cannot be contained.  God then reveals to us his plan-- for us “to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  God has carefully and thoughtfully planned ways for each of us to share, with our neighbor, our humble, grateful love; not to earn God’s favor but because of his favor!

Because we are human, our initial way of viewing things will always be Action/Consequence.  My hope is that, by understanding and acknowledging this, we will learn to pause and allow the Holy Spirit to change our lens.