For a few years now I have been increasingly bothered by something I have seen in Christianity – an underlying belief that it’s bad to work at, strive, and make an effort to grow, or really do anything, as a Christian.
So when I was reading ‘Your God is Too Safe’ by Mark Buchanan and came across his explanation of this I had to share it. He is talking about cultivating holy habits as the way out of borderland, where you’re not really going anywhere. This is what he says:
‘Holy habits are not legalism. We are not trying to earn anything from God by being disciplined. He deosn’t love us more if we practice holy habits or love us less if we don’t. They’re not about that. They are, rather, about experiencing more and more the kingdom presence and power of Jesus Christ that is available right here, right now.
There is a key confusion in modern Christianity that greatly hinders us. We are overly prone to see legalism lurking behind every exhortation to strive and make an effort to be holy… but our confusion stems from a theological distinction we make that is simply not Biblical: we contrast grace with effort. We say, “I live under grace. I don’t need to strive, I don’t need to make an effort. I reject all that legalistic entrapment and rigmarole, that monkish rubbish.”
But grace and effort are not opposites. Grace and earning are opposites. Working for your salvation is heresy. Working out your salvation is basic Bible. Grace and effort are allies.’
Here are some of the examples he gave of scriptures that tell us that because God has already given us all things, we therefore must make every effort:
‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’ Eph 4:3-6
‘For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.’ 2 Peter 1:5-7
Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Rom 14:19
So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 2 Peter 3:14
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12:14
He goes on to talk about what our motivation should be for this effort and practice of holy habits, and I love how he narrows it down and simplifies it.
‘The goal of the disciplined life is love: to more and more live in and live out the two greatest commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, mind and soul, and love your neighbour as yourself. The touchstone of whether you’re rightly engaged with any discipline is to ask, “Is my love getting stronger, deeper, richer?” Something is wrong if you find that any discipline or habit you practice is making you arrogant, self-righteous, contemptuous, judgmental.’
Soooo… if I can try to summarise – It’s OK to make an effort, in fact the Bible even tells us to make an effort to grow in holiness.
The issue is what our motivation is. It shouldn’t be to earn our salvation, because we can’t. It shouldn’t be to show off to others, because that is pride. It shouldn’t be so that we don’t feel guilty or to make God love us, because God already loves us, accepts us (if we have received Jesus as our Saviour) and has forgiven us.
Instead it should be love – to love God and love others. And we show our love to God when we obey His commandments.
“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” John 14:21
Yes! This has been on my heart recently, too. You put into words, along with the scripture you referenced and the author you quoted, what I’ve been trying to get my head around: what I do as a believer should encourage growth toward loving God more and loving others more 🙂
I love always having more to get my head around! I feel like I’m only just starting to get it 🙂 The goal of loving God and others is so deep, but so practical as well.
I agree!I think it’s silly when we have sport teams that don’t keep up with the score, so that no one gets their feelings hurt and everyone is a winner. Your not a “loser” just because you lose a game. It’s a great life application lesson on how to deal with things not going your way and how to handle that with grace. And how to show good sportsmanship. I may have gone off topic, sorry, but this is what came to mind as I was reading your post 🙂
This is something I have always struggled with. Thank you for sharing these thoughts and scriptures on the subject.
Blessings,
Charlotte
Good post! This is something that is often misunderstood I think.
I like how you said grace and effort are allies. good stuff!
found you over at WLWW and I’m following you now.
Thanks, Traci
Here’s my last post about depression: http://ordinaryinspirations.blogspot.com/2012/04/whats-helping-me-during-season-of.html
Great thoughts! I want to always be motivated to make the effort to love God and others more. Thanks for a insigtful meditation.
Amen! It is not our efforts but our motivations that we need to question. Thank you so much for this reminder.
Thanks for sharing these excellent insights. It can be a fine balance between grace and legalism, but breaking it down to our motivation makes it much easier to evaluate our actions. I was meditating on this theme earlier this week when studying 1 Corinthians 4, especially verses 1-5.
Blessings,
Sharon