Most Christians I talk to about living a holy life have the same basic idea about doing so: "I work my hardest to be a holy person," they say, "I struggle fiercely against sin, and when I can't give any more to the effort of being holy, then I ask God to add His own power to help me carry on. God helps those who help themselves, you know." This is the common equation of holy living. My effort to the max plus a bit, here and there, from God to help me where I'm weak.
Is this what the Bible says, though? In answering this question, it's helpful, I think, to look at how the Christian life begins. How we began as Christian believers provides the basic pattern for all Christian living that follows; our first step with God establishes the basic dynamics of all the steps that proceed from it.
1.) We were "without strength" as unrepentant sinners standing under the wrath of God. (Romans 5:6-8); as spiritually unregenerate people, we were blinded by the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:3-4), unable to see the truth of the Gospel on our own; as people lost in darkness, we were alienated from God and hostile toward Him (Colossians 1:21).
We could do nothing to contribute to the work only God could do in making us able to understand and receive the saving truth of the Gospel. God must initiate because we are, without His intervention, unable to move toward Him. God draws us (John 6:44), convicts us of sin (John 16:8-11), gives us the capacity to repent (2 Timothy 2:25), and illuminates our minds to His truth (John 16:13-14), the truth of the Gospel, when we were "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1-3). This is not to say God forces us to trust in Christ, however. Having done all this for us, we must still choose to humbly receive the atoning work and life of Christ.
2.) Our "work" as a lost person brought to the saving, regenerating truth of salvation is to receive it by faith. (John 3:16; Ephesians 2:8-9; Acts 15:8-10; Romans 3:28; Romans 10:9-10, etc.) We no more contribute to our salvation by doing so than the person suffering from a burst appendix, trusting to the skill of the surgeon to remove it, has contributed to its removal. However willing the person with the burst appendix is to have the surgeon remove their appendix, and no matter how confident they are that the surgeon will do so successfully, they can only lay upon the operating table and be worked upon by the surgeon. Only the surgeon can save them from their ruptured appendix; they can do nothing but receive his saving work.
3.) So long as a person remains, by faith, in the truth of Scripture, convinced of its reality, focused constantly upon it, they will be more and more conformed to it. This is just the way God has made us. We are inevitably, to one degree or another, conformed to the things upon which we orient ourselves. And so, as we look unto Jesus (Hebrews 12:2-3), meditate upon God's word (Psalms 1), spend time daily considering His truth (Philippians 4:8), we become conformed to it. The Spirit works in tandem with our "looking unto Jesus," giving us a desire to do so, strengthening the effect of focusing upon the Lord and his truth, shaping in us the character of Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
4.) As the believer "lives by faith" (2 Corinthians 5:7), receiving and remaining in the truth of their salvation and new life in Christ, they naturally and progressively reflect this in how they live. Doing so is not a torturous, agonizing, wrenching of one's life away from the former, selfish, sinful manner of living in which one engaged. This is how Christian living done in the flesh, by human power, always is. In contrast, God's transformation, accomplished by His power, is so subtle and profound one hardly realizes it is happening. Often only in looking back does one realize they have been changed by the Spirit.
This is pictured best, perhaps, in John 15:5 where Jesus spoke of branches in the Vine producing fruit. Does a branch produce itself? No. It is an extension of the Vine. Does the branch enlarge and produce fruit by straining mightily to do so? No. It simply receives the life-giving sap and as a result inevitably grows and brings forth fruit. It is not the branch that grows itself and the fruit it bears but the life, the "sap," of the Vine. And the development the Vine produces in the branch is natural, subtle, progressive, impossible to observe directly. One could sit for days at a time watching a branch of an apple tree for growth and never succeed, though it is growing constantly. So, too, the Christian in whom the "sap of the Vine" is flowing.
I want to emphasize here that the inherent human weakness we have prior to salvation does not alter when we become born-again children of God. In-and-of ourselves, we continue to be profoundly weak creatures, unable to act in accordance with God's will and way except in a short-lived, superficial, faltering manner.
It is God in us, it is in the Person of the Holy Spirit, that the believer has the capacity to live fully in God's way. The Spirit gives to us both the ability and the desire to do God's will; we can only ever work out what God has first worked into us by the Holy Spirit. (Philippians 2:12-13) It is by the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13); it is by the Spirit we are "strengthened in the inner man" (Ephesians 3:16); it is by the Spirit we understand God's truth (1 Corinthians 2:10-13); it is by the Spirit's transforming work that the fruit of the Spirit manifests in our living (Ephesians 5:9; Galatians 5:22-23).
Just as God had to make us capable of choosing to receive Christ, He must also make us capable of living in obedience to His will and way. Our "job" in living holy lives is, then, threefold:
1.) Receive.
2.) Remain.
3.) Reflect.
Not the approach of many Christians to holy living:
1.) Possess. (By an active pursuit, and taking, of salvation.)
2.) Preserve. (By strenuous effort to master oneself.)
3.) Produce. (By more strenuous effort to be righteous and sanctified.)
Any time I hear a Christian say, "I'm trying to walk with God," or "I'm struggling to live a holy life," or "I am wrestling with myself to live God's way," I understand that they have not been properly discipled and so misunderstand all I've just laid out from God's word. A corollary to this, of course, is that they are living a very frustrating and failure-filled life as a disciple of Christ. This is the living of one doing in order to be rather than being in order to do. As Jesus said, "Without me you can do nothing." Why do so many believers not believe him, working to make themselves a branch in the Vine, instead, straining to produce fruit by their own labor?
Perhaps the problem is that being filled with the "sap" of the Vine, with the life-giving Holy Spirit, requires one key thing: submission. Many want God's stuff, but they don't really want Him. They want help from God but they don't want to be under His complete control. But the only way the life of the Spirit fully manifests in us is as we live in moment-by-moment surrender to the will and way of the Spirit.
Romans 6:13
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Romans 6:22
22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.
Romans 8:14
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Romans 12:1
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
James 4:7-10
7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
1 Peter 5:6
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,
Micah 6:8
8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?
Is this what the Bible says, though? In answering this question, it's helpful, I think, to look at how the Christian life begins. How we began as Christian believers provides the basic pattern for all Christian living that follows; our first step with God establishes the basic dynamics of all the steps that proceed from it.
1.) We were "without strength" as unrepentant sinners standing under the wrath of God. (Romans 5:6-8); as spiritually unregenerate people, we were blinded by the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:3-4), unable to see the truth of the Gospel on our own; as people lost in darkness, we were alienated from God and hostile toward Him (Colossians 1:21).
We could do nothing to contribute to the work only God could do in making us able to understand and receive the saving truth of the Gospel. God must initiate because we are, without His intervention, unable to move toward Him. God draws us (John 6:44), convicts us of sin (John 16:8-11), gives us the capacity to repent (2 Timothy 2:25), and illuminates our minds to His truth (John 16:13-14), the truth of the Gospel, when we were "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1-3). This is not to say God forces us to trust in Christ, however. Having done all this for us, we must still choose to humbly receive the atoning work and life of Christ.
2.) Our "work" as a lost person brought to the saving, regenerating truth of salvation is to receive it by faith. (John 3:16; Ephesians 2:8-9; Acts 15:8-10; Romans 3:28; Romans 10:9-10, etc.) We no more contribute to our salvation by doing so than the person suffering from a burst appendix, trusting to the skill of the surgeon to remove it, has contributed to its removal. However willing the person with the burst appendix is to have the surgeon remove their appendix, and no matter how confident they are that the surgeon will do so successfully, they can only lay upon the operating table and be worked upon by the surgeon. Only the surgeon can save them from their ruptured appendix; they can do nothing but receive his saving work.
3.) So long as a person remains, by faith, in the truth of Scripture, convinced of its reality, focused constantly upon it, they will be more and more conformed to it. This is just the way God has made us. We are inevitably, to one degree or another, conformed to the things upon which we orient ourselves. And so, as we look unto Jesus (Hebrews 12:2-3), meditate upon God's word (Psalms 1), spend time daily considering His truth (Philippians 4:8), we become conformed to it. The Spirit works in tandem with our "looking unto Jesus," giving us a desire to do so, strengthening the effect of focusing upon the Lord and his truth, shaping in us the character of Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
4.) As the believer "lives by faith" (2 Corinthians 5:7), receiving and remaining in the truth of their salvation and new life in Christ, they naturally and progressively reflect this in how they live. Doing so is not a torturous, agonizing, wrenching of one's life away from the former, selfish, sinful manner of living in which one engaged. This is how Christian living done in the flesh, by human power, always is. In contrast, God's transformation, accomplished by His power, is so subtle and profound one hardly realizes it is happening. Often only in looking back does one realize they have been changed by the Spirit.
This is pictured best, perhaps, in John 15:5 where Jesus spoke of branches in the Vine producing fruit. Does a branch produce itself? No. It is an extension of the Vine. Does the branch enlarge and produce fruit by straining mightily to do so? No. It simply receives the life-giving sap and as a result inevitably grows and brings forth fruit. It is not the branch that grows itself and the fruit it bears but the life, the "sap," of the Vine. And the development the Vine produces in the branch is natural, subtle, progressive, impossible to observe directly. One could sit for days at a time watching a branch of an apple tree for growth and never succeed, though it is growing constantly. So, too, the Christian in whom the "sap of the Vine" is flowing.
I want to emphasize here that the inherent human weakness we have prior to salvation does not alter when we become born-again children of God. In-and-of ourselves, we continue to be profoundly weak creatures, unable to act in accordance with God's will and way except in a short-lived, superficial, faltering manner.
It is God in us, it is in the Person of the Holy Spirit, that the believer has the capacity to live fully in God's way. The Spirit gives to us both the ability and the desire to do God's will; we can only ever work out what God has first worked into us by the Holy Spirit. (Philippians 2:12-13) It is by the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body (Romans 8:13); it is by the Spirit we are "strengthened in the inner man" (Ephesians 3:16); it is by the Spirit we understand God's truth (1 Corinthians 2:10-13); it is by the Spirit's transforming work that the fruit of the Spirit manifests in our living (Ephesians 5:9; Galatians 5:22-23).
Just as God had to make us capable of choosing to receive Christ, He must also make us capable of living in obedience to His will and way. Our "job" in living holy lives is, then, threefold:
1.) Receive.
2.) Remain.
3.) Reflect.
Not the approach of many Christians to holy living:
1.) Possess. (By an active pursuit, and taking, of salvation.)
2.) Preserve. (By strenuous effort to master oneself.)
3.) Produce. (By more strenuous effort to be righteous and sanctified.)
Any time I hear a Christian say, "I'm trying to walk with God," or "I'm struggling to live a holy life," or "I am wrestling with myself to live God's way," I understand that they have not been properly discipled and so misunderstand all I've just laid out from God's word. A corollary to this, of course, is that they are living a very frustrating and failure-filled life as a disciple of Christ. This is the living of one doing in order to be rather than being in order to do. As Jesus said, "Without me you can do nothing." Why do so many believers not believe him, working to make themselves a branch in the Vine, instead, straining to produce fruit by their own labor?
Perhaps the problem is that being filled with the "sap" of the Vine, with the life-giving Holy Spirit, requires one key thing: submission. Many want God's stuff, but they don't really want Him. They want help from God but they don't want to be under His complete control. But the only way the life of the Spirit fully manifests in us is as we live in moment-by-moment surrender to the will and way of the Spirit.
Romans 6:13
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Romans 6:22
22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.
Romans 8:14
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Romans 12:1
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
James 4:7-10
7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
1 Peter 5:6
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,
Micah 6:8
8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?
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