The Grace Discipleship Group

This is part 2 in series that Steve Lehrer posted on the IDS blog.  I found it to be very helpful as I consider how to live my life to the glory of God in everything.  Be sure to read part 1 first.  Please leave us a comment to let us know you were here and to encourage those who follow you to love Jesus more and more.

Here is part two:

I am assuming you read Pt. 1 of this series and you are a bit troubled, as I am, about life.

It is confession time. Yes, I have gotten comfortable.  Let me tell you how I arrived at this answer.  You see, I have wrestled with this question.  In fact, this question has been buzzing around my head for the last five years.

Pride and Prayer
It began to sink into my soul several months ago when I was leading a bible study on humility.  We were reading through and discussing Wayne Mack’s book Humility: The Forgotten Virtue.  I really didn’t think I had any great struggle with humility.  Nothing beyond the normal struggle we all have with these root sins.  After all, I have taken my share of knocks, bumps, and bruises in this life and I am well aware of my sinfulness and that I am not some sort of stand out talent at anything.  I didn’t think that I thought too highly of myself…and then Wayne Mack pointed out that prayerlessness was a big red flag that had pride written all over it.  It meant that I thought I could handle life.  It meant that I thought I was adequate.  Prayerless?  Me?  I mean, I wouldn’t have said that I was prayerful, but prayerless seems a bit over the top to describe me.  And then I began to simply think about my life and what I did and what I believed.  I have had seasons of wonderful times in prayer but for the vast majority of my Christian life prayer has been a struggle.  I realized that I not only believed that I was adequate, but that I had a major theological obstacle to me thinking that I was inadequate.

The “Full Tank” Theological Problem
I believe that God has made me into a new creature.  He has forgiven my sins and is working in me through His Spirit.  This is wonderful and life-giving theology.  But if misunderstood it can also become a religious “I’m adequate” theology.  After all, if God has made me into a new creation and by His Spirit He is transforming me, why pray.  He is already doing that stuff.  I have a new heart, therefore I have within me the ability to have the right motives “by God’s grace.”  I have had to really rethink this.  You see, God has made me into creature and He has forgiven my sins.  He has given me a new heart and His Spirit is at work in me.  But this work of the Spirit is supposed to lead to my humility and me crying out to God for help each day.  I do not have a “full tank” of God’s wisdom or power.  I need to “approach the throne of grace boldy” based on the atoning work of Christ.  But I approach and cry out to God for help because I have an empty tank and I am inadequate without His help right now.  When I was converted that is exactly what I knew was true.  Did that change?  Did I somehow become strong and self-sustaining?  Has God so transformed me that I only need Him on rare occasions?  Answer:  No, No, and No.  God has changed me so that I see my spiritual poverty and He has given me the desire to constantly repent and come to Him for everything I need to live for Him.

Life is a Desperate Spiritual Battle
As the “empty tank” thought began to take hold of me I began to see that I viewed much of my life as ordinary.  It was rare for me to view myself as being in any sort of crisis in which I really needed God.  Suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks!  There is no day in my life in which the spiritual war is not raging.  I cannot think God-honoring thoughts without God working in my mind and heart.  I cannot get anything out of Scripture without God illuminating His Word and giving me eyes to see and embrace it.  I cannot be a spiritual encouragement to my wife and I cannot be a godly father without God helping me every moment!  In fact, I do not even have the heart, much less the power, to fight sin and love God without a massive work of God in my life every moment of every day.  So, there should not be a day or an hour that does not go by without me crying out to God to deliver me from my enemies (world, flesh, devil) and to give me victory in the battle.

The “Why” Question
All of this led me to ask the question, why did God make the Christian life work this way?  Why does God make me so needy?  Why does He use such ineffective means by which to crush Satan and bring His people to Himself?  Let me see if I can tweak those of you who have been catechized:

Why did God create the world?  He created the world for His glory.
Why did God create man?  He created man for His glory.
Why did God create Satan?  He created Satan for His glory.
Why does God use ineffective means to crush Satan?  He uses ineffective means for His glory.

Hmm.  I see some repetition here.  So how is God glorified?

It seems that God is glorified by using weak and pitiful people like you and I to showcase His strength when we cry out to Him and He crushes our enemies.  I tend to think that I am this part of a big machine that God is making to accomplish His big plan, which is to crush Satan and purify the world from sin and wickedness.  That perspective is really quite wrong.  God could will Satan out of being at any moment.  He had the defeat of sin and wickedness done by Genesis 6-9 when He flooded the earth and destroyed everything.  A correct view is that God wants to use me to glorify himself by using me to trust Him and live for Him before the watching world.  He wants to show His power when I give myself wholly to serving Him and I call out to Him and he rescues me when I am in trouble (Read Exodus 14 for a vivid account of this idea).  He wants to show His glory when I do something for the kingdom and I properly give Him all the credit because He has granted me what I prayed for in the first place and in the end he gave me the strength and the influence or whatever else to accomplish my goal.  God wants to show His worthiness when I forsake all the pleasures the world has to offer in order to serve Him because I find that He is more wonderful than anything that this world has to offer.

Come Back to Earth!
You may be thinking that this is all very lofty “sacrifice all” talk, but that you are tired of this kind of guilt inducing blog that simply says big things but does not give you anyway to truly change your life so that you can actually begin to live a consistently rich, satisfying, joy-filled but self-sacrificing Christian life.  Well, that is what the next few blog entries in this series will be devoted to.  I will be giving some suggestions based on what I have already written that will help us to live consistently and live radically for Christ without giving in to the temptations of legalism or license.  Stay tuned!

Steve

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