ALIVE IN YOUR SECURE BELONGING IN CHRIST
26/11/24 08:32
“What are the marks of a heart that has been radically changed by the grace of God? If we trust in Christ, what should our hearts be like? It is not simply a matter of morally virtuous behaviour. It is quite possible to do all sorts of morally virtuous things when our hearts are filled with fear, with pride or with a desire for power.” (1) Or with the false gospel of legalism, or with the burdensome idea that we must pay Jesus back by performing charitable acts or other behaviours designed to secure our acceptance with Jesus.
FALSE GRACE
But in this mode we have un-graced ourselves, become our own Savior and smothered the spirit and life that could have been our witness had we acted in the spontaneity and freedom that is ours in the non-artifice of a person incarnated with Jesus.
WHERE LOVE STARTS
Godliness does not start with a list of do-good activities. It starts with union with God. Joined to the Vine we bear Christ’s fruit and spontaneously become a self who is a person imbued with Christ’s love/ love of life and compassion. Thus we touch others with spirit and life.
THE SELF BURDEN
A burden of religion can be self-obsession – a drive to self-justification resulting from ignorance of who Jesus is and what He has done for us in which there is no rest for human restlessness, and we are absorbed in making our own steps to Christ - even though He has made steps to us so that we are include forever in the Communion that is God.
AT HOME WITH SELF
Leanne Payne writes, “When God is centred in us and we in Him, we have a home within, a true self or center out of which to live. We cannot live from that center and at the same time be bent idolatrously toward the creature [us]. To fail to live from our center is to be in need of both spiritual and psychological healing. This “bentness” as over against “centeredness” is often described in terms of emotional dependency. But some of the “lesser” forms, those that aren’t “pathological,” but keep us back from wholeness, often go unnoticed.” (2) If this bentness results from a socialisation in a bent gospel and a lesser christ, we may think that this is the normal Christian life when it is actually the crippled life that results from a crippled gospel.
THE REAL YOU GROWS FROM HERE
Hidden in Christ we become revealed as our true selves. Legalism is about ourselves and our performance. An obsession that can lead to neurosis, trivial pursuit religion, frustration and as a result abandoning God altogether. Many Believers have departed the faith entirely because the gospel to which they were introduced is mainly humbug and confusion. C. S Lewis noted that "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." You can do this when Christ is your life. This is your real sabbath rest, aka Christ Himself for you and as you.
(1) Keller, Timothy. The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness . 10Publishing. Kindle Edition.
(2) Payne, Leanne. The Healing Presence: Curing the Soul through Union with Christ (pp. 63-64). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
