Our Way

One of the most common objections to Christianity is that elements of the faith do not please us. The objections rarely come in such a simplistic and honest form, but many objections if inquired further boil down to "I do not like a God who would ask this of me."

It is most common to believe what we like. It takes great fortitude to believe something to be true that we do not like. And this is the issue with faith in Jesus.

For all the attractive and compelling reasons to have faith in Jesus we do not like what he has to say about or lives. To accept the good news of the gospel we must first accept the bad news about ourselves.

It is abundantly apparent that we need the gospel. We are all fallen and sinful, but we do not like to accept our nature.

We always like to push things off and ignore the reality of things. It is easier to say that God is wrong about the nature of people than it is to deal with the fact that God is right about our nature and we have a lot to fix.

The gospel is abundantly good news. We are welcomed into eternal fellowship with God. But we first have to accept that God is right about our nature and that we are in need. The good news is only good once we accept the fact of our need.

Suspicion of Self

There is a healthy suspicion of self that comes with a healthy Christian faith. In life a lot you find that you are not always the person you had imagined yourself to be.

The good news for progress in the Christian faith in sanctification is to first admit when you are the person you had not hoped yourself to be. Most people who progress few steps in sanctification always act as if the sin they have done was an aberration rather than that it says something about oneself.

The excuses are easy, "I was too tired" or "I had a bad day." Certainly there is truth in these statements, but underneath them is that our sin does say something about our heart. We were not simply unjustly angry because we were too tired, the tiredness simply allowed an opportunity for something of our sin nature to slip out.

Many Christians fear viewing themselves as sinners. As if the perfect work of Christ can be undone by some action they have done.

The reality is that we have started with an infinite debt, and have been sanctified by a grace which is even more infinite. Your righteousness is not in yourself it is in heaven seated at the right hand of God.

We don't have to pretend that we have no sin, because to grow it is necessary to first admit what we struggle with. God's love is not dependent on our works rather God's love is dependent on his love for Jesus who has already paid the price.

Introspection

I am thinking more and more that one of the important things to do in life is too keep looking to Christ.  I feel that when I spend too much time looking inward at myself I get confused because of my great depravity.  I am beginning to feel that one of John Piper's and the Puritans' theological faults is to encourage too much introspection.  I think it is too easy to become confused when you look
into your own soul, because of the magnitude of sin you see there.  The more righteous you are the more sin you will see, just as Paul saw himself as the chief of sinners.

I think that the solution to this problem is too keep my eyes on Christ.  When I look to Christ we see my worth in relation to him.  I see my worth in his infinite love for the reflection of glory in me.  And then when I gaze on my brokenness though Christ I see my brokenness as magnifying God's great and merciful grace in forgiving.

This in turn should cause me to love Christ more as we begin to sense the infinite magnitude of sin against God.

Of course I think Piper emphases theology mostly right, but I feel that at least in my life I do better emotionally and serve Christ better when I keep my eyes on him more and do less of the introspection that Piper encourages.  I suppose that it could be possible to do large amounts of
introspection of our self though the lens of our love for Christ, but I'm not sure that that is really even the best thing to do either.  It seems to me better to just keep our eyes on Christ more and we will naturally discover things about ourselves in our daily lives and of course not all introspection is bad...

Answering the Question: "If all our actions are to some degree sinful then why should we even try for righteousness?"

A response I have made to a good question about what I wrote. Basically the point in question is if all our actions are to some degree sinful then why should we even try for righteousness and why shouldn't we be hopeless. The answer to this is the doctrine of Justification by faith alone apart from works of the law.

Well the reason is that there are degrees of success and failure. The Calvinist, well at least anyone who actually knows some theology, will say that even man's best actions are flawed.

Take for example John Calvin's prayer: "We are poor sinners conceived and born in iniquity. Prone to do evil, incapable of any good. And in our depravity we transgress Gods holy commandments without end or ceasing."

You would be quite wrong in thinking that Calvin would feel a need to lay down and give up. He cannot keep the law for one second! That's the point: he has to put his faith in Christ he has nothing in his credit to show to God. Love is the only correct response to such a free gift from God. Thus the Christian life will be one of loving God and brokenhearted humility that God chose me while I had no good actions no not one to my credit. But, the point is that we have Christ's righteousness in our account, no sin credited to our name.

Romans 3:10-12:

As it is written, "None is righteous, no, not one;
No one understands;
No one seeks for God;
All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

We have nothing to give to God and nothing to commend ourselves to him. Because of his gracious gift to us while we had absolutely nothing to merit it our hearts turn in love to him. The question you ask though is why we shouldn't give up since all our actions are flawed. Well God calls us to the task of following his commands and if he calls us to an impossible task because we love him we should do it. The Calvinists sees degrees of success and failure. Sincere heartfelt prayers are truly pleasing to God despite their falseness. As Jesus puts it: "if you love me you will do what I command." Doing what he commands of course has no effect on our salvation, because we have Christ's righteousness in us and no sin to our account. God in the bible is often written about as looking upon his servants with favor. This does not negate in the least the fact of the fact all these men's actions are fallen. Calvinism is often misunderstood because people will say that if we are saved by faith alone why not go on sinning? We reply, no we shall not go on sinning that Grace may abound. (Paul had to deal with this one, in Romans 6 maybe that is a good place to look for your answer.) Basically a life where one rests in the comfort of "I believe in God and am thus saved" and has no sign of works in their lives is suspect. See my entry on June 2 because that is what that entry is about. Basically for the Calvinist our great depravity is not to be something to discourage our effort, but it is always used to magnify the intensity of God's glory.

A Prayer

I feel I need to make the following prayer my own:

"We are poor sinners, conceived and born in iniquity and corruption, prone to do evil, incapable of any good, and in our depravity we transgress God's holy commandments without end or ceasing."