When it comes to engaging and influencing culture, too many Christians think too highly of political activism.
Thankfully, while our self-righteousness reaches far, God’s grace reaches farther.
Performancism is the mindset that equates our identity and value directly with our performance and accomplishments.
Our minds are affected by sin. Our hearts are affected by sin. Our wills are affected by sin. Our bodies are affected by sin.
The Bible is one long story of God meeting our rebellion with His rescue, our sin with His salvation, our guilt with His grace, our badness with His goodness. The overwhelming focus of the Bible is not the work of the redeemed but the work of the Redeemer. Which means that the Bible is not first a recipe for Christian living but a revelation book of Jesus who is the answer to our un-Christian living.
Christianity is not about good people getting better. If anything, it is good news for bad people coping with their failure to be good. The heart of the Christian faith is Good News, not good advice, good technique, or good behavior. Too many people have walked away from the church, not because they’re walking away from Jesus, but because the church has walked away from Jesus.
The law may expose bad behavior, but only grace can win the heart.
The law offends us because it tells us what to do – and most of the time, we hate anyone telling us what to do. But ironically, grace offends us even more, because it tells us that there is nothing we can do, that everything has already been done. And if there is something we hate more than being told what to do, it’s being told that we can’t do anything, that we can’t earn anything – that we are helpless, weak, and needy.
Many Christians think that God is perpetually disappointed with them. But because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, God sees us as friends and children, not as enemies and strangers. God is a good Father, and because we’re with Jesus, God’s affection for us is unchanging and His approval of us is forever.
Children will run from law, and they’ll run from grace. The ones who run from law never come back. But the ones who run from grace always come back. Grace draws its own back home.
It’s when we come to the end of ourselves that we come to the beginning of grace.
What I’m most deeply grateful for is that God’s love for us, approval of us, and commitment to us does not ride on our resolve but on Jesus’s resolve for us. The gospel is the good news announcing Jesus’s infallible devotion to us despite our inconsistent devotion to Him. The gospel is not a command to hang on to Jesus; it’s a promise that no matter how weak and unsuccessful our faith and efforts may be, God is always holding on to us.
The great and merciful surprise is that we come to God not by doing it right but by doing it wrong!
First, we need to understand theologically that the gospel doesn’t just ignite the Christian life, but it’s also the fuel that keeps Christians going and growing every day.
Gospel only sounds good to a heart that knows it is bad. For people who think they’re good, grace is frustrating. For people who know they’re not, grace is freeing.
As long as we are seeking our worth in anything and everything but the gospel of God’s grace, we will keep seeking and keep wearing ourselves out in the process. But in Christ’s finished work is ultimate and eternal validation. And ultimate and eternal rest.
God attaches no strings to His love. None. His love for us does not depend on our loveliness. It goes one way. As far as our sin may extend, the grace of our Father extends further.
William Temple in the nineteenth century, I like to remind myself and others that the only thing you contribute to your salvation and to your sanctification is the sin that makes them necessary.
Our identity is anchored in Christ’s accomplishment, not our own; Christ’s strength, not ours; Christ’s pedigree and track record, not ours; Christ’s victory, not ours. Who we really are has nothing to do with us at all – rather, it has everything to do with what Jesus has done for us.
One surefire way to know you’re starting to grasp this message of grace is when you’re finally able to admit that you’re not the good guy – that you never were and apart from grace never will be.