We have an innate tendancy as humans to LOVE making things about ourselves. We love doing things ourselves. It’s in our nature. As toddlers we all go through a “do it myself” phase. As parents you sit back and watch your kids “do it themselves” even though kids tend to do things backwards and it takes way longer.
I remember one time when my little sister Marvi was about 3 years old and we were getting ready to go somewhere and I had put her shoes on her feet. But her independent, sassy self insisted on doing it herself. So, she untied the laces, pulled off her shoes AND socks one by one and then proceeded to put them back on by herself.
You can imagine my agony as I watched Miss Independent with her 3-year-old dexterity struggle to twist the heel of her sock from the top of her foot to it’s proper place on the bottom of her foot. I can’t even speak of the struggle it was to straighten out the tongue of the shoe once her foot was finally properly placed in the correct shoe.
I wonder if that’s how God feels with us sometimes as He watches us trying to earn what He’s already given. We try to do it ourselves in order to be worthy of His blessings…“Thanks for saving me God. Now I can do it myself. Let me impress you with my efforts, with my serving, with my dedication, with my ability to say no to temptation.”
Intellectually I knew that we are saved “by grace through faith, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Intellectually I knew that we are saved because of a relationship with Jesus.
But in reality many of us have conceptualized a “relationship” with Jesus into a formula of do’s and don’ts (do your quiet time, pray every day, get in a Bible study, don’t hang out with the wrong people, don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t listen to secular music, etc etc), a twelve step program…a religion.
I knew that Jesus did the work to save me from hell… but subconsciously I thought that the degree to which I experienced His blessings and promises was dependent on my ability to stay within the lines of the straight and narrow.
It’s like His work on the cross was my get out of jail free card, but then I had to work to climb this ladder to be in relationship with Him–whatever that meant– and to receive the blessings of joy and contentment that we advertise.
But if you want to know the truth, I was walking in the religion of my own efforts and abilities… and sadly I named my religion “A relationship with Jesus.”
The truth was I knew nothing about Jesus the person whatsoever. So when my system– that was doomed to fail from the beginning– did, in fact, fail I got frustrated, felt empty, and even questioned if this Jesus was even worth my time.
This is the danger of putting our faith in doing it ourselves instead of walking in the fullness of grace.
Jesus is saying to us, “No, you don’t need to strive to impress me! You don’t need to work hard to receive my blessings! Your performance doesn’t make you worthy…MY performance has made you worthy once and for all. You’d enjoy Me and my blessings a lot more if you’d stop trying to earn it, stop trying to do it yourself, and just accept my grace!”
How much time and effort do we waste trying to obtain that which we’ve always had?
Stop trying to earn His blessings. Don’t let self-condemnation or self-effort be your motivation for doing good.
Throw out the list of dos and don’ts and realize that You are already holy, already worthy, and fully and completely loved– even when you mess up.
The degree to which you experience His blessings and promises in your life is dependent upon your decision to stop trying to earn it. Do you trust His goodness? Do you trust His grace? Can you accept grace? Grace has a name…His name is Jesus.
The more you allow yourself to accept Grace, the more you get to know Him, we begin to need so little else…temptation and sin begin to lose their grip on our lives because they pale in comparison to the beauty of walking with Grace Himself.
