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John 1: 17
You see, Moses gave us rules to live by, but Jesus the Liberating King offered the gifts of grace and truth which make life worth living.
Put simply, God’s part is to work; [the human] part is to trust. Although these two parts are quite distinct form each other, they are not really contradictory.—Hannah W. Smith
When Jesus came to liberate us from sin and death, he also came to liberate us from legalism and exclusion. The Hebrew people connected their Chosenness with their family line—who was in and who was out. They also connected their spirituality with rule-keeping and purity practices that intended to make them a set-apart, holy people.
When Jesus came, he lowered the bar of acceptance. He redefined the family of Israel. Now, it was not what your heritage and ancestry was—and how pure your Israelite connections—it was instead the state of your heart. He invites all into the family of God. No more complex law-keeping, intense purity codes or dance-steps with rules. Jesus liberated us from legalism. No more trying to get it right.
Then, Jesus raised the bar of covenant. He did not give us another rule/morality/legalistic system to keep. Instead, he invites us into a faith that asks all of ourselves to be in covenant relationship. A covenant that understand holiness not as “do’s/don’ts”, but as a commitment to a love-relationship that changes the way we think of about God and then, of course, each other. A covenant that doesn’t lower us to being moral, but instead asks us to be holy. It becomes not about the laws that define us and keep us “pure”, but about the heart that motivates us to honor one another and ourselves with holy lives.
This is quite radical (radical's true meaning of being "cut back to the root"). People outside the church still think that being a christian is about being moral. Not about being holy. There must be something to this misperception--perhaps that people who follow Christ are still trying to be moral, instead of being in covenant relationship.
Jesus immerses us in this covenant relationship. Our part is to trust, Christ’s part is to do the work.
It’s like riding a surfboard. We do not generate or shape the wave. We learn only to trust that the wave will take us to the shore.
We can’t make ourselves holy or liberate ourselves by our actions or even our thoughts.
We love, we trust, we follow in the wake of God. And even that is God’s work.
This is extremely important because in our western Christian world being a Christian is understood as being a moral person who is trying to find self-actualization. 2000 years later and we are still like the Pharisees: we haven’t exchanged our moral codes for real relationship. And we still try and make the mark and become our “best self” instead of surrendering to Jesus.
Christians and those who do not follow Christ both still live at the intersection of “being good” and “becoming better”.
It’s not about being good. It’s not about being your best self.
It’s about trusting God with your broken, messy self and Christ hiding your self in him.
Give it up. You can’t make yourself holy.
You might as well stop trying and begin releasing.
As you love God with your whole being--slowly and surely that love relationship will release you into immersion of Jesus Christ and real holiness.
2 comments:
This whole issue of being holy, or being holier, is a really big one here at Asbury and one I've never felt stuck in the middle of before coming here. It's the curse that comes from twisting the holiness movement into legalism. I was just thinking the other day that if we would stop trying to be holy as an attempt to get at God and just work to build trust and love with God, the holy will simply begin to show up. I like this post. It gave me great relief and made me smile.
Thank you, Sarah. Our world needs to hear the Truth you proclaim.
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