Spiritual Discipline Notes

Potter’s Hand

The Question

There are two errors we tend to make in our Christian walk, and by avoiding one extreme we often tend towards the other.

On the one hand, we realize that God is righteous, and he calls us to be righteous. “Be holy, because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:16. And as good obedient Christians, as people of God, followers of the shepherd, we want to be good, do the right thing, stop sinning. So, quite naturally, we try really hard to “do better.” We set our minds to it, we set our wills to it.

We try to become better people by our own will, our own strength, our own might. Mostly we fail, and when we do succeed, our self-satisfaction and pride are as much sin as whatever it replaced.

We set up rules about what we will and won’t do, to protect ourselves from sin. We build a kind of safety zone…

Example?

It makes total sense to me, and Christians have been doing it since the beginning. Paul wrote to the church in Colossi in Colossians 2es we make about what we will touch or taste or see, based on merely human commands and teachings:

“23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

That “self-imposed worship” can literally be will worship, or worship of one’s own will. So even when we appear to succeed by effort of our own will and effort, it lacks any true value, we exchange one sin for another.

How do we navigate between soul-killing legalism and stagnant passivity?

Commands to obedience -> Will worship: -> legalism or moralism

Corrective: Col 2:20-23. Human striving is inadequate.

Romans 5:17: Righteousness, eternal life, salvation is a free gift! Danger, antinomianism or idleness

The New Testament is filled with responding calls to righteousness, to holiness. (here is one)

Possible Guiding Verses

Philippians 2

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

1 Cor 9

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Big Idea

God changes us… but he uses means… and He delights in cooperating with His creatures.

We are not only saved by grace, we live by it as well

“Our work is to place ourselves in the way of Christ and invite Him to work in our lives, individually and collectively. The Spiritual Disciplines are merely an attempt to describe how we can accomplish that work.”

Illustration

Balancing the chasm. Driving on Devil’s Slide?