I realize now more than ever what a difference there is between Christ and doctrine. Being Bible-based and teaching-centred is no guarantee of the softness of heart and firmness of faith that delights God. It generally produces the opposite - superficial relationships, pride and disqualification. Books on marriage do not, at their final chapter, convert your marriage to greatness. Love does. The Bible does not make us great Christians - Christ does, who is the Word of God abiding in us.
I realize it is far easier for me to pursue moral rightness than holiness. It is easier to live than to die. Christian moralism still allows me my private sins; my anger; my pocket idols. It is not too hard to find a church that will celebrate me for my gifts and brilliance, above my fellowship with the Spirit.
We reject the lie that holiness can come through observing the law - we are too wise for that one - but then we can make laws out of grace easily - as easily as we can preach about the gospel without preaching the gospel. As the puritan Thomas Watson put it, "There is as much difference between heavenly comforts and earthly, as between a banquet that is eaten and one that is painted on the wall."
There's no getting away from it (praise God) - the man is his message. This gives us over to the liberty of responding to Jesus in our hearts. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. I care not whether the man be the apostle Paul or the church janitor, this is the truth. No-one is blessed by a man's rightness. All are blessed by God's righteousness in Christ, finding a home in you and me.
As the law produced animosity towards God and men, so now Christian moralism produces prayer apathy and private scorekeeping. We will be prayerless without private passions to God. Desire and desperation - the stuff of Real Life - drives us to God. Moral rectitude keeps us in neutral. It was the reality of David's fears and desires - coupled with his belief that God was real and rewarding - that drove him to worship and petition. Doctrinal and social rightness is the reward in itself...to have proved myself more right than my fellows. It is the antithesis of love, of self-emptying love.
John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
4 comments:
Mostly I agree but I can testify that it is not "reality of our fears and desires and a belief that God is real rewarding" that drives man to God. It is only grace - 1Jn 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Grace is God's gift that draws us...our neediness of God is what draws us by that grace. You have put two complimentary things in opposition. "God rewards those who earnestly seek Him"....we are to "seek Him for wisdom under trial"..."those who run to Him are safe"; Paul "felt the sentence of death", but "relied on God". We all need God's power an deliverance daily. recognizing that neediness does not diminish grace - it magnifies it! My comment was also in the context of David's emotions captured in the Psalms. Without an all-gracious God, why would we flee to Him? God's grace does not deliver us out of this world or our own weaknesses - it provides strength in the real world and power in spite of our weakness. All of us experience fear and pressure and trouble - Jesus promised it - but He said He would be with us in this world.
Neediness is for those that are not born again. Those that are born again are called to walk like Jesus. A sensible person would not claim Jesus was needy. When we are born again we have become one with God and therefore no longer seek for what we already have or are. See Jn 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. and see Jn 4:13, Ro 8:32 etc.
We are call sons of the most High - Can a son not call on all of his Father resources? See Jn 15:7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
God has rewarded us that earnestly sought Him and we are now called His sons.
We that are His are perfectly safe - Luk 10:19 ...: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Everyone that is born again is continuously led by the Spirit and 2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Hi Anonymous. "Neediness" of salvation is satisfied at the Cross, once and for all. Anyone who drinks the water of life will never thirst again. they have passed from death to life. They will not come under judgment (John 5:24). i have always believed this. i have never doubted my salvation, and its eternal assurance based on the Finished Work of Christ alone, apart from works (Eph 2:8-9). However, where you err is assuming the anxieties and passions I or the scriptures speak of are about eternal assurance. The Word is full of born again men and women crying out to God. Whether it is those, like Abraham, who "heard the gospel in advance", or those since the time of Christ on earth. Or Christ Himself! Paul "felt in his heart the sentence of death" because of persecution. Abraham pleaded for an heir. Jacob wrestled with God. Jeremiah cried out in the cistern. God healed Epaphroditus so as to spare the apostle "sorrow upon sorrow". “One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”" (Acts 18:9-10). God stored all David's tears "in a bottle". The whole of Psalms is soaked in the pathos of David and the power of God... "when will you comfort me?". "If we are distressed, it is for your comfort" (2 Cor 1:6). God "comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God" (2 Cor 1:4). "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). So too, today, His living word brings comfort and peace to troubled saints. It is a living transaction between a living God and His people made alive in Christ. it is not some dead grace formula. This verse is written to saints - "Is anyone of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise" (Jas 5:13) - the Bible never denies the range of human emotions and experience - it introduces a higher power and source of worship, deliverance and reward! Even Christ Himself offered up "prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death"! (Heb 5:7). But... "What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution...?". Nothing separates us, because we are in Christ forever. This I have never doubted, nor does my blog doubt it.
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