Ever since the Enlightenment, we’ve been told in a thousand different
ways that accomplishment precedes acceptance; that achievement
precedes approval. And since we all long for affirmation and
validation, we set out to prove our worth by doing. Unwittingly,
Christians in this cultural context have absorbed this mentality and
taken it into their relationship with God and their understanding of
the Christian life.
This was apparently a problem in Jesus’ day too. For instance, when Jesus was asked in John 6:28,
“What must we do to be doing the works of God?” he answered, “This is
the work of God, that you believe in him who he sent.” What? That’s
it? How terribly anti-climactic!
As it was with Martha in Luke 10:38-42, so it is with us: we just have to be doing something. We can’t sit still. Achieving, not receiving, has become the mark of modernity’s version of spiritual maturity. Martin Luther once wrote:
To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.
The hardest thing to do even as believers in Christ is to simply
receive something. In fact, there’s nothing we fear more than having all
control taken out of our hands. Keep Reading...
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