The concept of grace has never been a struggle for me in thinking that Jesus SAVED me while I was still a sinner, but through a speaker this weekend, I came face to face with my real struggle. Not only am I saved by grace, I am kept by his grace. I'm not saying that I was worried about my salvation and wondering if I were good enough to keep my salvation, by no means. I understand fully that his grace keeps me saved, but does his grace keep me right with him?
I live a preformance based Christianity... I do right because I know it is right and thats what God wants from me. And somehow if I am having my time with the Lord, if I pray, if I do what I'm supposed to, me and God are tight. If I don't, we are not tight and I feel far away. But is that really how grace works? Romans says "While we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." God knew what kind of state that I was in and even after he has saved me, MY righteousness still does not set me right before God... it is STILL by God's grace.
The speaker I heard this weekend said that sanctification is just swimming in the pool of your justification. I have been made right by the blood of Christ, but for some reason I don't SWIM in that, I beat myself up with little "good things" that somehow I think will please a holy God.
So today, a kid named Jose as sitting at the bench. When I asked him what happened he said, "I got mad." When I asked why, he said, "Because I missed one on my phonograms." One. And I began to think, this is me. I do not allow grace to be extended to me. I extend it to others and I let Jesus extend it to them, but somehow I think I need to be perfect. I am still trying to figure out how exactly I swim in my justification... but I think it means that I just jump in and let Jesus' grace cover me: good, bad and ugly.
Good thing he sent that 3rd grader to convict me of my lack of grace on myself.
I can relate with you, Jamie. I also tend to be a "by the book" person and, even though I believe that obeying God is not a bad thing, I have to always watch myself for trying to 'earn' God's love/approval by being perfect, and feeling failure when I miss the mark - as if making a mistake is not an option. I've learned a lot about God's grace because we can't give to others what we don't have for ourselves, but I still battle often trying to find out what I did wrong - always looking for a fault as an explanation for the times when I don't understand.
ReplyDeleteWe are indeed the righteousness of God IN CHRIST. Our salvation lies in Him being perfect enough for both Him and I because He knew what He was getting when He got me (us); He knew full well that we would never be capable of perfection, but when God sees us through the righteousness glasses of Christ's blood then we are acceptable to Him despite our imperfection.
Now it is just a matter of reminding ourselves of that every time the enemy tries to tell us that we don't cut it - until we believe it :)
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