What Do You Know

Your spiritual wellbeing and standing with yourself, others, and God is often attached to your ability to look right, act right, walk right, do right. Fail in your Christian performance, and your acceptance proves tenuous—with your critics, and by implication, with God too.

While performance is important,[1] it has nothing to do with your personal acceptance with God. As far as your heavenly Father is concerned, you are accepted singularly on the basis of what you have done with Jesus Christ. If you have asked Him into your life to reign, rule, and live through you, God says you are accepted. Absolutely. Perfectly. Irrevocably. If you have not invited Christ into your life as your Savior and Lord, the One who justifies you with God, then you are outside of Christ and apart from God.

Acceptance with God is binary: You are either in Christ and accepted or you are outside of Christ and distant from God.

The point is that since your acceptance with God has nothing to do with your performance, you are free to practice your performance without risking rejection. In your heart-of-hearts—the deepest aspect of your being—you desire to know God, walk with Him, and understand His ways.

Practicing the disciplines of the faith are the keys to realizing your heart’s desire.

At a basic level, if you are a Christian then your future is secured. Through the sacrificial effort of Jesus Christ, your sinfulness and sins are forgiven. You are made new, and when you die, heaven is your destiny. You are free to do nothing more with your faith.

The problem is, your heart desires more than forgiveness and heaven when you die. Further, life on this orb is a raucous, careening, irregular, asymmetrical dance with the devil. The primary message of God to you is that He is present, He understands what’s at stake, and He is pledged to meet each day and every aspect of life from within you and for you. You are not on your own and you are not alone—unless you prefer it that way.

By definition, the disciplines of the faith are those places where you meet with God and He meets with you. Your heart desires to know God, and by practicing the spiritual disciplines, your heart finds satisfaction.

It’s true: Salvation is through Christ alone, by faith alone. As Ephesians says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”[2] The point is: You can’t save yourself. Salvation and right-standing with God are a gift from God through Christ. Further: There is nothing that you can do to improve, maintain, advance, or more firmly establish your standing with God. If there was, then the “finished” work of Christ wouldn’t be finished and salvation wouldn’t be a gift.

While most conservative theologians believe the above paragraph, in their quest to inspire you to act like a Christian, some tie sanctification to your ability to perform. By sanctification, I mean your acceptance and secure standing with God. So while saying one thing about the finished work of Christ, it’s not uncommon to be taught that you are saved by grace and perfected—sanctified—by how well you perform.

In addition to being poor theology, this performance-based acceptance applies tremendous pressure on you to get it right lest you create a barrier between you and God. After all, who wants to be on the outs with God?

But while this teaching is common, it is unbiblical and incorrect. It has to be! You can’t have the biblical books of Hebrews, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, et al declaring that Jesus Christ removed all the barriers that stand between you and God only to then declare that He didn’t actually remove all the barriers.

Jesus Christ either satisfied God’s just requirements or He didn’t.

Thus, there is nothing you can do to cause God to love and accept you more than He already does if you are in Christ Jesus. Conversely, there is nothing you can fail to do that will cause God to accept and love you less than He already does if you are in Christ Jesus.

You are accepted.

Therefore, you are totally free, and freely responsible, without substantive risk, to pursue your heart’s desire of knowing God and walking with Him. Your journey will not be without stumbles, weaving, and an occasional run-off into the ditch. Such is life. But in your determined trust of reliance upon the Spirit of God there is also copious mercy given through Christ.

God doesn’t expect you to get life perfectly right. He does expect you to show up, engage with Him, and learn His ways. Isn’t this true of all vibrant relationships? You both show up and bring everything you’ve got to the relationship.

Note: This article is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Rigorous Grace: Practicing the Life of Jesus. The book has an expected release date in March 2022.

[1] Cf.: Ephesians 2:10; Titus 2:14.

[2] Ephesians 2:8-9.