When I was around seven years old, I told my parents that I wanted to talk to the preacher about salvation. I cannot recall exactly all that was going through my mind at the time. I do remember being very nervous. Rev. Bobby Tew (one of the coolest and funniest men I’ve ever known) sat down with me and had a conversation with me about what was going on. It led to me embracing Christ.
I bought into a lie after I came to know Christ.
Something happened to me after that. I bought into a gigantic lie that made my walk with Christ seem like I was carrying 1,000 lbs. on my shoulders. As I grew older and became a teenager, the stress of being a “good Christian” was overwhelming. I fluctuated between the two polar opposites of trying really hard to please God and giving up when I felt like I had failed Him. Sometimes I would watch my behavior closely, trying not to sin. Other times I would act out in rebellion, doing whatever I wanted because I felt my efforts to please Him always fell short anyway. At those times, I would say to myself, “Why even try? I will fail anyway. I might as well do what I want and enjoy myself.”
Many of us buy into this lie that led to me struggling so much. The lie may come in different forms, but it always communicates the same thing. It says, “Sure, you are saved from hell, but you are still only one false move away from the chopping block. You’d better get to work. God may love you, but He doesn’t like you very much. You still have a lot to do in order to rid yourself of that dirty sin you keep committing. You know the one I’m talking about! And God does too! He’s waiting for you to prove you are the Christian you ought to be.”
Maybe my ancestors were from Galatia.
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he addressed the fact that the people there were believing the same lie that I struggled with (and still do at times). He began Chapter 3 by saying, “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” (Galatians 3:1, ESV). In other words, “You crazy Galatians!…Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives.” (excerpts from Galatians 3:1, The Message)
The Galatians had started their walk with Christ by trusting God’s Grace to be sufficient. They trusted themselves, with all of their sins, hurts, and shame, with the Lord as they knew they could not bring themselves to the point of being worthy of a relationship with Him outside of His Grace. They knew they could not perform well enough to please Him with their own self-effort. However, after a period of time, Paul noticed that they had fell for the lie that they could somehow live their lives as believers differently than how they first embraced that new life in Christ. They were trying to, in self-effort, manage their sin and please God with their performance.
We cannot please God by relying on our moral striving, even on our best day.
Why do we do this to ourselves? We are acting crazy if we think we can somehow “be a good Christian” by focusing on each other’s sins and managing them better. Sin is actually in control of us if we ever think we are in control of it! And we actually start to feel crazy after a while of living like that!
The fact is, God is not asking us to do the impossible…which is: train ourselves to “do more good works that are pleasing to Him” and “sin less”. He does not want us to “do things for Him”. Instead, He wants us to enter into what He does for us. Ephesians 2:8-10 tells us, so beautifully and simply, we are saved by Grace through faith (trusting Him with ourselves and trusting what He says is true) and that salvation has nothing to do with our self-effort. The same goes for our walk as believers after salvation. Just as much as we needed to rely on Him in the beginning, we also need to rely on Him now. It’s the only way for us to mature. We do not become something different by working hard to become something different. In fact, we are already different. In Christ, we have been reborn…a beautiful, new creation in Christ. We are loved, accepted, secure, special, redeemed, and significant. He is already pleased with us. Nothing will change that. Now, we are able to act out of that new identity when we trust Him.
His Grace never stops.
He will continue to shower His love and Grace on us until we release our grip and let it in. That is what Paul was trying to convey to the Galatians around the years 54-55 AD, and that is a message we all need to hear now. As my friends at Trueface say, “Grace changes everything.”
-Neil
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