Romans 10:1-3
1 Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer
to God for them is for their salvation.
2 For I testify about them that they have a zeal
for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.
3 For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking
to establish their own, they did not subject
themselves to the righteousness of God.
1 Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer
to God for them is for their salvation.
2 For I testify about them that they have a zeal
for God, but not in accordance with knowledge.
3 For not knowing about God's righteousness and seeking
to establish their own, they did not subject
themselves to the righteousness of God.
Many's the time I've heard Christians advising fellow Christians how to walk with God on the "What I do is..." basis. So long as the advising believer's actions and experience line up with God's word, their advice has value but, too often, "Christian" advice diverges widely from God's word, contorting Scripture badly to make it fit the advice and experience of the one offering it, or even contradicting God's Truth directly.
In the discipleship class I teach on Sunday evenings, this problem recently came to the fore in the class discussion. One of the fellows in the group declared that his conversion experience was such-and-such and if the experience of another believer didn't conform to a high degree to his own, it was his belief that the person wasn't likely saved. I asked this fellow to make the case for his thinking from God's word, of course, which he quickly realized he couldn't do. He was a bit sheepish, but we all recognized how easy it is to slip into this sort of thinking, putting our lived experience on par with God's word.
Where our experience bears out the Truth of Scripture it can be helpful to a fellow believer, but when it doesn't, catastrophe can result from urging another believer to follow it. Perhaps in no other regard than in the "how" of Christian living is this the case. I was talking with a fellow in my church over lunch and we got talking about the power source for Christian living. He had a very..."macho" approach to this subject, believing every Christian person was obliged to "just do it." His view was that if they didn't want to do it; if they hadn't been able to do it in the past; if they had prayed and God hadn't helped them to do it, well, tough nuts, be a man, dig deep, and do it anyway.
This is what is commonly known as "boot-strap theology": The onus and power for Christian living rests in the individual believer who must do their best to produce for God their copy, their version, of what it is to be like Christ. Imagine a room of people sitting at desks loaded with big mounds of clay. At the front of the class, Christ stands, instructing everybody to make from the clay their best copy of himself. They do what they're able, some creating vague likenesses, others making rather monstrous, contorted versions of Jesus. Even those who produce figures of Jesus that stun the others with their detail and similarity, are only able to produce lifeless images of Christ, immobile and impotent, frozen in a single posture and expression forever. None, of course, are able to come anywhere close to producing the real thing standing in front of them.
Unfortunately, many Christians, in my experience anyway, have something like this view of being a Christian. They are busting a valve to be like Christ, from the "clay" of their own human powers straining mightily to make their best version of him. It never works, though, because this approach to Christian living isn't described, nor prescribed, in Scripture. This comes as an unpleasant shock to Christians who finally realize it (as I did some years ago) - especially if they've spent a lifetime working on the "image" of Christ from their own "clay." To those, though, who can let go of their investment in an unbiblical approach to walking with God and adopt His way, who can admit they haven't properly understood what it is to fellowship with Him daily and take up the real thing, a whole new realm of experience and transformation awaits with God, the "abundant life" in Himself that He's promised to all of His own.
So, where does God locate the power source for Christian living?
Romans 8:13-14
13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Galatians 3:1-3
1 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
2 This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
Galatians 5:16
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
Galatians 5:25
25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
Ephesians 3:16
16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
Ephesians 6:10
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
Philippians 4:13
13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
And so on.
Are things coming into focus? In light of these verses, how is it that so many Christians take up doing for God in their own power instead of letting Him do for them in His power?:
Philippians 1:6
6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.
1 Peter 5:10
10 After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.
Jude 1:24-25
24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,
25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
What's particularly awful is that Christians mired in "boot-strap theology" are often very keen to urge others to do the same! Misery loves company, I guess. But such theology inevitably leads to failure, frustration, hypocrisy and even legalism. Worse, it cannot produce deep, rich, daily communion with God, filled with His life that transforms the believer effortlessly and profoundly. Frustrating "boot strap theology" is, though, the "lived experience" of many Christians which, they'll sometimes admit, doesn't yield the greatest results. Never mind, though, if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for you.
Beware this sort of damaging advice! Live in the Truth of God's word, instead! You ought to be enjoying the "abundant life" of faith, love and submission to God, resting in the infinite life of the Holy Spirit who alone can produce Christ in us, and made by him a holy, "fruit filled" vessel, sanctified and properly equipped for God's use. Settle for nothing less.