Great Article by John Ortberg
(See http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/communitylife/discipleship/spiritualgrowthplan.html?start=2)
In this article from Christianity Today, Ortberg is writing about the challenges that followers of Christ faces as their lives change and develop. He says that
". . . over time they become aware of a gap: the gap between who I am right now and the person God wants me to become.
People think they are supposed to bridge that gap by trying harder.
You hear about someone who gets up at four o'clock in the morning to pray, and you feel guilty because you think you don't pray enough. So you resolve to do that too, even though you're not a morning person, even though at four in the morning you're dazed and confused and groggy and grumpy, and no one wants to be around you at four in the morning. Even Jesus doesn't want to be around you at four in the morning!
But you think, Well, this is exhausting and miserable—I certainly don't like doing it—so it must be God's will for my life. It must be spiritual. You keep it up for several days or weeks, but not forever. Eventually you stop. Then you feel guilty. After enough guilt, you start doing something else.
It leads to a cycle: I feel guilty, so I try harder to do some devotional practice, but eventually I get fatigued, and eventually I quit, and after a while I feel guilty about quitting, and the whole cycle starts again.
We teach people how to be saved by grace. But we often do not teach people how to live by grace.
Self-improvement is no more God's plan than is self-salvation. God's plan is not just for us to be saved by grace—it is for us to live by grace. God's plan is for my daily life to be given, guided, guarded, and energized by the grace of God. To live in grace is to flow in the Spirit.
The more my habits are formed around resentment or anxiety or greed or superiority, the more often I will quench the Spirit. It will take time and wisdom for habits to get re-formed. But the Spirit of God is tenacious. All that is needed in any moment is a sincere desire to be submitted to the Spirit's leading. We need not worry about God's response; a sincere heart never needs to fear God is mad."
(See http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/communitylife/discipleship/spiritualgrowthplan.html?start=2)
In this article from Christianity Today, Ortberg is writing about the challenges that followers of Christ faces as their lives change and develop. He says that
". . . over time they become aware of a gap: the gap between who I am right now and the person God wants me to become.
People think they are supposed to bridge that gap by trying harder.
You hear about someone who gets up at four o'clock in the morning to pray, and you feel guilty because you think you don't pray enough. So you resolve to do that too, even though you're not a morning person, even though at four in the morning you're dazed and confused and groggy and grumpy, and no one wants to be around you at four in the morning. Even Jesus doesn't want to be around you at four in the morning!
But you think, Well, this is exhausting and miserable—I certainly don't like doing it—so it must be God's will for my life. It must be spiritual. You keep it up for several days or weeks, but not forever. Eventually you stop. Then you feel guilty. After enough guilt, you start doing something else.
It leads to a cycle: I feel guilty, so I try harder to do some devotional practice, but eventually I get fatigued, and eventually I quit, and after a while I feel guilty about quitting, and the whole cycle starts again.
We teach people how to be saved by grace. But we often do not teach people how to live by grace.
Self-improvement is no more God's plan than is self-salvation. God's plan is not just for us to be saved by grace—it is for us to live by grace. God's plan is for my daily life to be given, guided, guarded, and energized by the grace of God. To live in grace is to flow in the Spirit.
The more my habits are formed around resentment or anxiety or greed or superiority, the more often I will quench the Spirit. It will take time and wisdom for habits to get re-formed. But the Spirit of God is tenacious. All that is needed in any moment is a sincere desire to be submitted to the Spirit's leading. We need not worry about God's response; a sincere heart never needs to fear God is mad."
posted by Bruce Pittman @ Friday, March 26, 2010
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