Two Important Announcements

Hello everyone,
      Here are two important announcements for you.

      Firstly, my blog has moved to my official author site www.gracefighters.org. I will be posting articles there beginning this week.
      Secondly, my book, "Fight for Grace", is officially released. You may find it on Amazon (see link below), Barnes and Nobel.com, or your local Christian book retailer.

     Thank you for your support!


Andy



Link to Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Fight-Grace-Time-Roll-Sleeves/dp/1449773400/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354129485&sr=1-1&keywords=Fight+for+grace

My Own Private Penance

           Why is it that when we sin we feel the need to somehow make up for it? This is fascinating to me. We may wrong a person, or lose our temper, or lust, or fall into gluttony, and often times when these sins occur in our lives there is an immediate reaction to try and make up for it.  We often think, “Wow, look at what I did! I really don’t deserve to do anything fun today…I am completely unworthy of praying to God or serving in His church, going out with friends or taking some alone time for myself. I am just so rotten! I am not worthy of anyone’s love or grace because of what I have done.”

            Sound familiar?

           

            My wife is a woman who is full of grace towards me, and this comes out especially when I do or say something rude to her. I know exactly when I have let my flesh out towards her, and afterwards, I feel so silly because I know that it is not how I am meant to live. But I also find that when I have let my flesh out (usually impatience) I am tempted to reject my wife’s love for me after the fact. For some reason, I feel so unworthy of it almost as if her loving me this way simply is not fair, and I need to reject it to keep the scales even.

            While rejecting love and grace filled acts towards us sometimes feels right, what we are really doing is inflicting a subtle type of penance towards ourselves. We often think “I have been bad. I must make up for it.” This seems especially true for Christians at times. We feel that when we sin, we suddenly become unworthy of God’s grace and must do something to make ourselves worthy. But the reality is that grace has never been about fairness: grace is not fair, and by definition, it never will be.

            Essentially what we are doing when we deny Christ’s work in the midst of our failure is enacting our own private penance. Sure, we may not be hitting ourselves with a whip, but we each have our own “whips” that we try and use in the midst of failure. Sometimes my whip is agreeing with the thought that I am too dirty to make an impact in the kingdom. As I said above, another whip I use is the denial of my wife’s love for me in the midst of failure. Whatever our weapon, penance is a flagrant attack on the work of Christ. He has already done everything needed for our “worthiness.” He has already done everything needed to “make up” for our sins. There is no room for penance in true Christianity.

            Hebrews tells us why.

            “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” Hebrews 10:14

            So how has Christ perfected those who are sanctified (set apart)? By one offering: Himself. True Christianity leaves no room for penance because Jesus has done it all. We are perfect because our sins have been forever taken away. Sure we may feel stupid when we sin (this isn’t a bad thing necessarily), or we may feel unworthy of such a beautiful gift of grace. But what sets Christianity apart in the world is that it is not about giving people what they deserve. It is about accepting Christ and His work as a free gift.

Why is Christianity the narrow path that is entered through the “narrow gate” (Matthew 7:13)? Because people have to come to the end of their self-righteousness and private penances, and receive the free gift of grace. We must all recognize Jesus, and Jesus alone, as the one and only means of our “perfection” and righteousness before God. There is no sin for which we must perform penance. There is no sin that is too big for the work of Christ. We must learn to rest in this finished work without any attempt to doctorate it up by man-made religion. Like it or not, when we add to the work of Christ, we are saying that He is not enough for us, and that His work needs to be doctored up a bit so that it is sufficient.

This is very dangerous ground indeed.

True Worship

            Worship has been a topic of debate for a long time: "What is it? How do we do it? How do we do it better? What kind of corporate worship is permissible in church?" For some churches, worship is singing out of a hymnal without any instruments, while others have a full worship band complete with back-up singers and a lead guitarist. 

             I think there have been some grave misunderstandings about worship and its real meaning. Growing up I always saw Sunday morning as the “worship time” for my week, and I think on a very subconscious level I began telling myself that true worship can only happen in a church with music on Sunday morning. I lived with this belief for a while and constantly sought worship through music and nothing else.

             Because I am a musician and a huge fan of worship music, I will admit that songs are often an easy place for me to go to focus on Christ, but often times I will listen to a song or sing one in church, and I will be completely unresponsive. I won’t be passionate about the words of a certain song so I will automatically think “Well, I must not be worshiping today! I must not be intimate enough with Jesus…” As I have thought about worship more and more, I have realized that when this mindset is present, we aren’t worshiping. Not because we don’t respond to a song, but because our focus is off of Christ.

             Romans 12:1 helps paint a great picture of true worship.

           “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

            Paul knew how to simplify worship. It was a response to God’s mercy, and ultimately led to believers offering their bodies to the Lord. While other gods and religions around the world call for people’s bodies to be offered as blood sacrifices to appease a god, the God of Heaven and Earth calls us to offer ourselves because He stands appeased by the blood of Jesus Christ.

           Worship is not a one time a week ordeal where we come to church to be intimate with God. It is a daily, moment by moment response to His mercy in Christ. It is done because we have been made intimate with God through Jesus Christ, not to gain intimacy.

            Singing songs about our great God is wonderful. Coming together as a body of believers throughout the week to reflect on Jesus is what church is supposed to look like. But true worship is not ultimately in the songs we sing, or the actions that we carry out. It is in the response to God’s mercy. If we respond to the grace of God by offering our bodies (voices included) to Him daily, this is worship. But if we are doing it for some other reason, it ceases to be worship entirely.

            Much debate has occurred over what worship forms are appropriate in the church. We often ask “Should we use guitars? Hymns? Banjos? Which songs should we sing?” And many a worship leader has thought “What on earth is wrong with this congregation? Why don’t they show their excitement by raising there hands and jumping around?” But while we ask these questions, the Father is asking us to lay aside these human ideas of worship, and reflect on the magnificent work of Jesus. When true worship is in focus, it becomes less and less about HOW we worship in church, and more about WHO we are worshiping. Worship was never meant to be confined to specifics like musical or instrumental choice. God has always intended our worship to be a life spent responding to how great Jesus is, and how the Love of God has magnificently revealed itself to mankind throughout human history. Anything else is false worship.

            And let’s face it, the more the grace of God is tasted, the less the music even matters. 

The Helper

            We Christians often define our faith as a faith where people can be forgiven for all of their sins simply by trusting in Jesus’ finished work on their behalf. This is a completely amazing and completely true fact about the Gospel. When we trust in Jesus Christ for our right standing with God, all of our sins committed beforehand, and all sins that we will commit are completely forgiven in an instant. The book of Hebrews even goes as far to say that not only has God the Father completely forgotten our sins, but so has the Holy Spirit (see Hebrews 8:12, and Hebrews 10:17). But is this all there is to being a Child of God?

            It is so tempting to make the conclusion that we are saved by grace through Christ’s work on the cross, but after we are saved, we need to roll up our sleeves and get to work for God. The problem is, as all who have lived in this mentality know, that when we think this way, we are often placing trust in our own strength to live the Christian life.

            In short, when we do this, we are setting ourselves up to fail. Often.

            So when we do fail we think “Crud, there I go again, failing for God. I can’t believe I sinned! I thought I would never cross that bridge again. Well, there I go, being my own sinful self. Thank God I am forgiven!” It becomes an endless cycle. We remember Jesus work. Receive grace. Get back to work. Fail. Remember Jesus’ work. Receive grace. Get back to work. Fail. And so on, and on, and on, and on.

            But God does not limit the good news of His Son to forgiveness for sins. Yes, this is an amazing part of the gospel. But it is not the whole gospel. There is an entire second half that we often forget.

            Jesus Christ lives in us.

           

            That’s right. The one Being in the entire universe who actually has the Christian life down perfectly is alive in us, wanting to express Himself through us. So what does this look like?

            Imagine for a minute that you are a young filmmaker trying to be noticed by Hollywood, and have the opportunity to have the spirit of the Academy Award winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg living inside of you. Wanting to be as good as him, you jump at the chance. So, old Steven’s spirit comes and lives inside of you wanting to express his style of filmmaking through you. A few days after this miraculous (and weird) encounter, you receive a call from a top producer who really wants you to make a movie for them. You jump at the opportunity!

As you might already imagine, when you make that movie you have a choice. You can either roll up your sleeves and get to work on it in your own power, or you can let the master live his life through you guiding your actions and counseling you. You can let him help you.

This is how it is for us after salvation. We can either go for the Christian life ourselves, or we can let Jesus do it.

            The Bible describes the character of the Spirit of Jesus in this way:

            “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Galatians 5:22-23

            He is always producing these qualities both towards and within His children. We never have to wonder how God is acting towards us at any given moment. He will always be loving, joyful, peaceful, kind, gentle etc. towards us. But He will also always be guiding us into a lifestyle of allowing Him to express these qualities through us. It’s what He has designed us to do: be expressers of Him.

            So how do we produce these qualities? We don’t. We stop trying to live the Christian life. We rest in grace and in God’s total acceptance of us through Christ, and as we do, the grip that we hold on our Christian walk lessens, and Jesus’ grip begins to tighten.

            As Christians we have been spiritually redesigned. Our sin nature has been destroyed and we have been made “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) and “slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:18). We aren’t evil at our core anymore; we desire what God desires. But we don’t successfully express this new us on our own strength. This was never God’s intention. We do it in total dependence on the Holy Spirit as our Helper, our encourager, and our power source. We do it WITH Him, BY His power. It is not “all of Him and none of us” as we are tempted to say. It is all of Him and all of us living the life together. Do you know that you are actually one with the Spirit of God? That your life and His life are completely inseparable?

            “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3

“But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” 1 Corinthians 6:17

We are completely forgiven when we trust in Jesus, and what an amazing truth this is! But it is not the whole gospel. We are changed from the inside out, and we become the Home of a God who desperately wants us to understand that we are not alone, so that we can stop living the Christian life as if we were.