I think my blog is probably going to be officially dead soon, unless somehow this post revives it, and sets the precedence for more to come.
The past weeks have been difficult, trudging through a spiritual desert, and clinging on to truths so dear. That dreaded monster appeared again, revisited again, as it always does. It’s visits are never pleasant, they are unanticipated, and so take me by surprise.
That monster is legalism. That monster is my endless need to do things for God. That monster is my insecurity, the burden I thrust on myself. I convince myself that my closeness to God is determined by my ability to fill up a checklist of things-to-do each day. These things include a 1 hour Quiet Time in the morning, includes talking to someone about the gospel, includes taking EVERY opportunity to do good and kind works. These things are all great in themselves, and they serve to make one’s election sure. But they cannot become my security, or my salvation, or my God.
But so often they do. And when I fail to tick off a checkbox, I am overcome by a deep sense of guilt. This guilt is like a migraine that gnaws endlessly at the heart. It grips me and doesn’t let me go. It triggers off an endless chain of ‘what ifs (i did this or that)?’ It tells me that I’ve let God down, it tells me that God frowns upon me and is displeased with me. This guilt disables me, and confuses me. This guilt paralyzes me.
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There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.
We are saved not because of the righteousness works we have down
Our righteous works are like filthy rags before Him
We are saved by grace – through faith, and this not from us, it is a gift of God
These truths remain firm. But then I realize how little I’ve put my hope in them. I realize sometimes that the fundamental foundations of my faith are still so weak. Every now and then I go back to reexamine my foundations to find them cracked, broken and begging for repair. Sometimes I find that they have all been built with the wrong material.
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Thank u Lord. Thanks for shaking my foundations. Thanks for always reminding me that I need to build my faith upon your grace and nothing else. Thanks for helping me find security and love in your promises rather than in my works. Please help me to throw off this legalistic lifestyle that entangles me, that cheapens the grace of God and Jesus’ sacrifice, that empties the cross of its power. Please help me to know the abundant life that Jesus promised to all who believe. Please let me know the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light. FREE me for joyful obedience, not slavish, guilt-driven obedience.
Amen.
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