Works-based Grace (me)

Lady L tells me last night that she's a bit worried - that my latest posts and emails have been sounding like 'do, do, do, do, do, do, do'. She didn't say it as such, but in a 'do, do, do, do' focus it's very easy to slip into a works-based faith.

I've been going through all of my posts in my recent label-tagging frenzy (sorry for anyone whose RSS feed went crazy), and I realize she's right.

So again, like Sophie said, I'm actually really really going to have to just chill, just love Jesus, and be strong in Him and His faithfulness and grace instead of being anxious and overthinking what I can do to deserve being His child. [not that I was consciously thinking this, but yes, in closer examination of my subconscious, I do kinda think that you must do things for people to like you.. so I might be struggling with the concept of grace. I hate it when people do things for me 'cause then I sorta feel like I need to reciprocate to the same amount to cancel out my debt to them.]

Ummm. Hmmm.

This might be harder than I thought.

Back to burnout, back to basics

So ladies and gentlemen, let us return to the topic of burnout. I have finally realized that I might not have had a full blown-out case of it, but I was definitely was on the verge. And a lot of the reasons for this came from my need to take on more and more things because of proud arrogance. I realized this when my friend, let's call him G-Dawg, was talking to me and said: "I think it's probably best for you to not do so much, 'cause I'm sure that some people could cope easily with the amount of things you were doing, but you couldn't". At that point, the proud voice inside me shouted: "WHAT?!?!? Do you have ANY idea how much I was actually doing?!?! Do you know that mere mortals would've succumbed to yellow fever and depression and scurvy all at the same time because of the pressure from all the things I had to struggle with?!?!" And then my rational voice kicked in, and I sheepishly laughed (still only mentally, as a burst of sheepish laughter at this point would've probably alarmed my poor friend, who would've probably thought that this was a true indicator of insanity and burnout). Not only did this voice reveal my overinflated sense of self, but I also laughed at God being so wise to give me friends who didn't treat me like the Be-all, End-all, and All-Capable-Superwoman.

On that note, I was recounting the number of people I know who recently was struggling with burnout to a friend of mine. Now, many of the people I told him about are highly involved in ministry at my church, so he understandably picked up on this: "Woah. Your church sounds like a Church of Works," he mused aloud. 'Agh, don't be silly', I thought, but later as I was driving home, I thought about it. Something I'd realized from this whole situation, was that I'd perhaps fallen into the trap of thinking that 'do do do' was the answer, and that if i 'did did did', I didn't really need to spend that much time with God, or work on my relationship with him. For as much as serving is a reflection of what Jesus' death means for you, it can also be turned into a bad thing of becoming a reflection of your misunderstanding of Jesus' death for you. In other words, serving changes from being a way of saying thanks to God for Jesus' death, into a way of working your way into heaven.

So, I'm now rethinking through a lot. Please pray for me every now and then :)

Change, change, change

Sometimes I really get frustrated with people who aren't showing any signs of being convicted by the gospel of Jesus and who aren't changing in ways that my eyes can perceive. Then I was reminded of two awesome ...umm, for lack of a better word... reminders.
[I don't know who to reference for these - I stole them from a friend's Facebook note :)]

1. Give people time to change
I think there are some tensions and questions here, but we need to give people time to change. How long did it take for you to become perfectly like Jesus? Of course, you’re still changing. There are some sins we’re prepared to work on over a lifetime, but there are others where we demand instant change. Why is this? The answer, of course, is that we want them to become respectable. We don’t want a messy community. So we say, ‘You’re saved by faith, but to become part of the church (e.g. to be baptised) you need to change your life.’ So which is it? Are we saved by works or are we saved by works?

2. Focus on the heart
What’s your agenda for change? All too often we focus on behaviour. We can list the behaviours we would like someone to stop or start. But Jesus says our behaviour comes from the heart (Mark 7:20-23). Our focus needs to be on the heart. Our job is to help people love God and treasure Christ. In Philippians 1 Paul says the aim of his ministry among them is their joy (1:25-26). He wants them to find joy in Christ – only then will people turn from the pleasures of sin. I do need to describe a life that pleases God. But my job is not to go round telling people to reform their lives or change their behaviour. My job is help people find joy in Christ.

Bearing fruit

I read Jude the other day, and something that really struck me is this description of ungodly men:

They are like “autumn trees, without fruit, and uprooted- TWICE dead. (Jude 12)

Not only are they dead when they are uprooted, but they are also dead if they do not bear fruit!

I think it was reading that that the main point of James suddenly struck home – that faith without works is dead.

So think upon that, dear friends.