A little break from the Prophets

Heb 10:22-23  Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.  (23)  Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)

What an awesome privilege we have to be able to draw near to our God – and to do so in full assurance. But where does that assurance come from?  Do we look for it in our behavior?  In our thoughts and reflections?  In miracles?  In feelings?

Yes – no and maybe!

Certainly we experience assurance in all these areas of our lives.  The problem we often face however is wanting to consistently and constantly experience our assurance in one or maybe two particular areas.  It is not my experience or my understanding or the Word that this is the way it works.  We are a whole – the sum of all our parts and it is in all our parts that we experience, have a sense of assurance.  To limit the evidence of our assurance to but one or two areas is to make ourselves spiritually myopic.

Our assurance can and does express itself in our senses.  We can “feel” that assurance.  But feelings, as we know, are fickle.  Bad food, stress, neurochemical imbalances call all radically affect our feelings.  To look too much to them is not a good idea.  

We really need to build our assurance on much more than us, our experience or behavior.  You see my assurance is not in me, it’s in Him.  As Heb.10:23 says, “he is faithful that promised.”  My assurance is Him – His faithfulness.  Next to that, my faithfulness is microscopic.

Our faith is ‘in” His faithfulness.  We have believed and we have been cleansed and now we work out our salvation – and fear and trembling is part and parcel of the process.  

Gal 2:20-21  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.  (21)  I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

Note the assurance in the verses above.  Many of us love to quote verse 20 but we seem to miss verse 21.

“Frustrating the grace of God,” is perhaps the most common activity we take part in.  Certainly we are to examine ourselves and “judge” ourselves but we cannot, for we have no right, to condemn ourselves.  

When we examine our lives and we find sin we are to fall upon the grace of God.  Yes, we need to address the sin and forsake it but we are to do this within the wonderful grace our Lord has poured out on us. 

The Law is the tool by which we measure ourselves but it is the grace of /God by which we must judge ourselves.  If sin is the way I measure my relationship with God, I will always be disappointed.  But if it is grace that I use then I, even as I struggle with sin, have every cause for rejoicing.

Without our unworthiness, grace would not be grace.  It’s tough to live with that tension but it is do-able.  

Gill says of the Galatians passage:

the life he (Paul) had was not of his own obtaining and procuring; his life of righteousness was not of himself, but Christ; his being quickened, or having principles of life and holiness implanted in him, was not by himself, but by the Spirit; and the holy life and conversation he lived was not owing to himself, to his power and strength, but to the grace of God; or it was not properly himself, or so much he that lived,

If you read the OT you will many places where god make it plain that it will never be by our efforts that we will be righteous (Deut. 5 is an example).

God says, “Thou shall not!”  but He knows we will.

God says, “Thou shall!”  but He knows we won’t.

So, why are we surprised when we do and don’t?  Why do we use our weakness (albeit redeemed) as the measure of our relationship with God when it is the faithfulness of Christ that is God’s own measure?

James presents us with a weird little insight into our lives in Christ.

Jas 3:2  For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.

Accepted – we all stumble and we do so in many ways.  That is the norm – the common frustration of all the redeemed.  But look at the measure of “perfection” or “wholeness” that James gives – what we say.  If we can control our tongues – but we don’t (read the rest of the passage).

STUMBLE:   πταίω   ptaiō

Thayer Definition:

1) to cause one to stumble or fall

2) to stumble

2a) to err, make a mistake, to sin

2b) to fall into misery, become wretched

Yes, sin is bad – we should do all we can to avoid it.  But we will stumble – trip.  OK – that is common and normal for us all. 

Yes, before our redemption we all stood condemned – now, we CAN’T.  

GET THAT???  CAN’T!!!!!

Rom 8:1  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

The bottom line?  “He is faithful that promised.”  Him – not you or I, Him.

God made you – God made you His > end of one story beginning of a new one!