“Our main problem in the Christian life is not that we don’t try hard enough to be good, but that we haven’t believed the gospel and received its finished reality into all parts of our life.”
In the Twitterverse, a discussion started among friends and we’d thought we’d take it somewhere that would allow longer-than-140-character-interaction.
To get up to speed – read this phenomenal article from Tullian Tchividjian. Some excerpts:
“For a whole host of reasons, when it comes to measuring spiritual growth and progress our natural instincts revolve almost exclusively around behavioral improvement.
Every temptation to sin is a temptation, in the moment, to disbelieve the gospel—the temptation to secure for myself in that moment something I think I need in order to be happy, something I don’t yet have: meaning, freedom, validation, and so on. Bad behavior happens when we fail to believe that everything I need, in Christ I already have; it happens when we fail to believe in the rich provisional resources that are already ours in the gospel. Conversely, good behavior happens when we daily rest in and receive Christ’s “It is finished” into new and deeper parts of our being every day– into our rebellious regions of unbelief (what writer calls “our unevangelized territories”) smashing any sense of need to secure for ourselves anything beyond what Christ has already secured for us.
I used to think that when the Apostle Paul tells us to work out our salvation, it meant go out and get what you don’t have–get more patience, get more strength, get more joy, get more love, and so on. But after reading the Bible more carefully, I now understand that Christian growth does not happen by working hard to get something you don’t have. Rather, Christian growth happens by working hard to daily swim in the reality of what you do have. Believing again and again the gospel of God’s free justifying grace everyday is the hard work we’re called to.
In short, I spend way too much time thinking about me and what I need to do and far too little time thinking about Jesus and what he’s already done.”
Here’s some of the Twitter discussion:
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pablonunez @DJjenkins @timcasteel I thought that article made some great points that are right on, but could it lead to a pendulum swing too far? 6/5/11 12:35 PM |
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pablonunez @DJjenkins I guess I would like to hear how “godly grief that produces repentance” fits into his paradigm shift. 6/5/11 12:58 PM |
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timcasteel @pablonunez @djjenkins He’s hitting on one side of the coin- faith. But not addressing the flip side- repentance of sin 6/5/11 4:07 PM |
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pablonunez @DJjenkins @timcasteel right, so the pendulum swing I’m pushing back on is “don’t look at your sin- just look at how stunning grace is.” 6/5/11 4:48 PM |
So what do you think?