Grace Biscuit: Trusting His Life Not My Flesh

We can stop worrying and feeling condemned over our flesh when we realize that God doesn't intend to "fix" it. God puts no hope in the flesh, neither should we!  My flesh is lazy, jealous, impatient, and prideful. But His life in me is loving, kind, humble, patient, and longsuffering. Why waste any more time feeling guilty or constantly trying to fix myself? It's exhausting. What I do now is fix my hope completely on Jesus Christ and His grace. The more I rest in Him, the more the fruit of His Spirit is produced in me.

My flesh will never change, but His life, working in and through me, can be trusted. So, instead ordering another Christian self-help book on Amazon.com, let's remember that Christ's life in us will accomplish all that He purposes for us as we rely on Him. After all, He redeemed us from our old life (flesh can never fix flesh) to give us His! The power of His Holy Spirit enables us to stop all this preoccupation with "what's wrong with me" as we walk by faith, not by sight. Love you all!

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." ~ Psalm 73:26 

Grace Biscuit: Guilt-free Living

When a baby is born, we're happy and rejoice! When my three children were born, I certainly cooed over them lovingly, thanking God for such precious life. I didn't look at them and say, "Hmm...I wonder what awful sinful past this baby had?

If we belong to God, He isn't saying that either.

Yet many of us, after being born into Christ, still kick ourselves and drag around a heap of guilt and shame. We worry we haven't pleaded enough for forgiveness, served God enough, disciplined ourselves enough, or think ourselves unworthy because of shame. Listen, none of us were worthy before He saved us! And religious works won't ever cleanse our conscience! But because God loves us, He provided a means for healthy guilt-free living; we just need to receive His provision. Only then will we serve Him with joy and out of this amazing grace in which we now stand.   

"For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrews 9:13-14, NASB, my emphasis). 

God knew we'd get hung up with guilt, but One sacrifice provided the remedy. Isaiah 40:1-2 says that our iniquity was removed! We received double for all our sins!...not punishment, but cleansing; not condemnation, but acceptance, love, and joy!

Hey, that's some jelly for your biscuit today!

Grace Biscuit: Our Ability or His?

"If you wanna be blessed," the sweet little church lady told me, "you have to remember the ifs and thens of the bible." She loaded me up with preaching tapes on obedience, reminding me that if I did this, then God would surely do that. I was grateful.  I mean, who doesn't want to be blessed?  But in my naivete, I embraced old covenant teachings that kept me in bondage. I struggled for years to meet God's requirements in order to receive His promises. If everything depended on me, then I was breaking under the burden of it all.  

What I didn't know is this: "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God" (2 Corinthians 1:20, emphasis mine).

Jesus Himself is the "yea and amen"... He fulfilled ALL the "ifs" and "thens." Resting in Him is the key, not our performance. Somehow I missed this truth and focused on spiritual rule-keeping. The grief, fatigue, and confusion eventually taught me that something was wrong. Even though I was very committed, I failed to see how abiding in His grace enables obedience. I was trusting in the cart to pull the horse. 

What are we trusting?  Our ability or His? 

"It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God ~ that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Grace Biscuit: Touching Scars

Kirsten grew up in a Christian family and knew lots of doctrine; Jill did not. Kirsten judged others by performance and outward appearance. Jill came to the Lord from a painful past and emotional instability. Kirsten promoted spiritual disciplines and taught really good bible studies. Jill devoured the Scriptures, hungry to know God.

Kirsten continues to exercise her gift of "exhortation" often.

Jill touches people's scars with the love she's found in Jesus.

** Post update** 10/27/09: Great discussion in the comments section. Thank you for adding your thoughts and insights. 

Grace Biscuit: The Real Gospel

Sin is so grievous, going to the very core of our being, our only real remedy for it is a completely NEW life in Jesus Christ. Maybe this is why grace is so often misunderstood.  People fear that grace is "soft on sin." But looking at sin realistically causes us to see how utterly wretched we are apart from Christ, so much that we finally give up trying to fix ourselves, relinquish our pride, and put the focus back on Him. Otherwise, we could spend a lifetime frantically working some religious self-improvement "program"...applying principles, keys, steps, or some "ancient pathway" just because a Christian author or preacher said it's necessary for vibrant spiritual life. No use taking pride in superficial changes - sin can't be corrected like this. The personal struggle to muscle it out, wears us out. 

No, the gospel is not just "Jesus for salvation," leaving us to shape up or ship out. His death was our sin offering. His Life is now our life! The real gospel, the whole gospel, is the gospel of grace - trusting in Christ to transform us. Because nothing else can.

Bite-Size Grace Biscuits Coming!

"Write down the revelation and make it plain..." ~ Habakkuk 2:2

Oh, how I'm enjoying this crisp fall weather!  How about you? Do you enjoy a change of seasons where you live?

For the remainder of October, blogging here will be on the light side. Not less frequent or less filling, just shorter. This will free me to tackle a home business project that needs my attention, but shorter posts will also help us ponder one main thought at a time. As always, I welcome your feedback since this is an interactive blog. We're in this grace journey together.

May the Lord free us from whatever baggage we're still carrying. The whole nature of Grace is redemptive and freeing. He reconciles, restores and makes us whole.

Let's explore what this means and put it into bite-sizes!  Are you with me?

Happy 5th Blogiversary!

Today marks the 5th Blogging Anniversary of  Windows to My Soul.  Can't believe it's been that long. This whole blog started as an experiment during a really low point in my life, but God has blessed me in the journey. Thank you for reading, caring, emailing, praying, for notes and cards. Your love and support has enriched my life. There is a sweet spirit in the blogosphere, filled with His goodness, truth, and grace. As long as I have breathe, I hope to write about Him. 

We're traveling Homeward together, my friends.

Because of Him, carry on.

Trying vs. Dying

"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." ~ Romans 8:11 (NIV)

 

When I'm driving, cooking, or putzing around the house doing chores, my mind drifts to this grace in which we now stand. I'm SO grateful, more than words can say. Because if you knew how I've tried to escape the tyranny of my own self-life, you'd either chuckle or admit you've done it, too. All of us want to overcome sinful self, and grow spiritually. But thinking we can do this, in and of our own power, is misleading to ourselves and anyone looking to our example.

These ideas and activities don't work:

 1. Denying self.  Beef up my efforts; get self out of the dog-gone way so Christ can work, make sure I'm denying my affections on a daily basis.

2. Conquer self by doing more spiritual stuff. "Feed the white dog, not the black dog." Attend more church gatherings and bible studies, pray harder and longer, become more involved at church, start a ministry, lead a class, get on the prayer team, witness, disciple or mentor others, give more money, make sure I'm using my gifts, write a spiritual blog, etc.

3. More education and training. Sign up for spiritual conferences, workshops, sermons, tapes, videos, books; go to the right church, get a theology degree, train to be a counselor, life coach, chaplain, or apologist, etc. Learn all I can! Knowledge is power, they say!

4. Attend revivals.  Confess, commit, care about souls more, pray for change, evangelize, make new spiritual resolutions, "get right with God" again and again.

5. Stay "cleansed" and forgiven. Make sure I'm current with God in regards to my sins. Confess every known sin to "keep short accounts."  If I don't, God won't answer my prayers or empower me!

6. Grow spiritually. Aspire to the "deeper" life. Plod along and don't stop lest I become "stagnant" in my walk with Him. Keep the spiritual disciplines; do whatever's necessary to further my growth in the Lord. "If you're not growing, you're backsliding!"

7. Seek bigger and better experiences.  Pray for more power, anointing, speaking in tongues, discernment, gifts, etc; travel near and far to 'healing' and prophetic conferences, meetings, or retreats, fast, etc. Keep the spiritual disciplines, follow the "ancient pathways," or discover "XYZ Keys to Spiritual Growth. "Don't wanna miss anything God has for me!"

These are some examples of many ways we've been taught to grow spiritually and deny self.  Ironic, isn't it?  The Lord says His yoke is easy, His burden is light, yet all this activity makes my head spin.  When we focus on an area, trying to attain something, we lose sight of the Person. After several years, I realized I'd shot myself in the foot by, first, trying to hurry my own growth and, secondly, trying to keep up spiritual appearances. That's a lot of trying!  Sheer exhaustion, growing irritability, and deep frustration about my many failures signaled something really wrong. The Lord didn't fail me; I had turned this Christian life into a chronic treadmill. Nothing destroys rest for our souls like striving to make something happen.

Abiding in Him is enough. He will work through any surrendered life, yours and mine, as we trust Him and believe in His finished work. Others may think I'm not doing enough to prove my godly devotion, but what a blessing to be freed from their opinion of me! 

So I'm learning this, flesh can't improve itself for very long. It needs to die. If we've received the Lord's life, our old self  DID die in union with Him on the cross. The old has passed, the new has come. The moment we trust Him and receive Him - the Gift of Grace - we become a new creation, raised with Him and blessed with His indwelling life. We're forgiven, cleansed, accepted, and empowered by His life to make right choices. 

Yes,  we have plenty (ineffective) ways to deal with the core problem of self, but God has only ONE way: His Son, Jesus Christ. At the Cross He dealt with us fully, and did more than pay for the penalty of our sin. He knew our flesh could never yield to good-intended resolutions or effort. Even educating ourselves about the Truth is not the same as being set free by Him. Jesus is truth. Why would He help improve our old sinful nature, the Adamic nature, when He can make us completely new in Him?

Our spiritual lives flow from His indwelling life, nothing else. There are no new revelations out there, folks, only Truth we need to receive and believe.

It's the Holy Spirit who holds "self" to the cross, rendering it inactive, causing us to respond to His grace, day by day. This life in Christ is a beautiful, fruitful, loving life of peace and rest - no more striving for what is already ours. Open God's Word  today and find the many ways He's provided for you through His Son. All we really need to do is take our place of union with Him. He does the rest.



(graphic courtesy of www.heartlight.org)