We all do it. We feel like God must love us more when we live the way we should. The thinking goes something like this, "I'm really on a spiritual high. I'm finding such joy reading the Scriptures. God must be really pleased with me right now." Okay, so we probably wouldn't actually say that, but we think it...don't we?
The other side of the coin is true oftentimes as well. When our spiritual disciplines are in the tank we feel that God must love us less than when we are faithful. We can often use our failures to fuel an attitude that goes something like this, "Well, I've already sinned. God is disgusted with me. I might as well continue on with it!" Again, though these words probably don't come out of our mouths, this attitude can be prevalent.
Some might even think that God's love for them is evidenced by their situation. Trials indicate God's displeasure with me. Happiness and blessings mean God loves me.
Why do we feel like are standing with God is either kept or lost (increased or decreased if you'd rather characterize it that way) based on our actions? Why do we feel that God's love for us is such a fluid reality? It is because we are legalists. We have this innate sinful desire to justify ourselves. In the face of Spirit-illumined truth to the contrary, we continued to defiantly say, "My standing with God cannot be based outside of myself!" This war can wage within us.
It begins before our conversion, like the rich young ruler who asked, "Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?" (Matt.19:16 NASB). This young man needed to know what "good deed" (ESV) he should do in order to be awarded eternal life. Jesus' answer is so foundational: "Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good." (v.17a). Jesus told him that the "good" that was needed for eternal life only came from one source...and it wasn't from within the young man (as was demonstrated by his refusal to sell all of his many possessions and give the money to the poor). After he left, Jesus provided some commentary about the difficulty of a rich man reaching heaven. His hearers were astonished and wondered who then could be saved. Jesus redirected them from thinking about individual people to God, leaving them with a word of great hope: "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (v.26).
As believers, we know this teaching, don't we? This teaching that God is the one who has done what was impossible for us to do. This teaching that the goodness that is needed for eternal life comes from Jesus the Savior. But we forget. We try and replace the righteousness of Jesus with our filthy rags again and again. God is good to grant us fresh repentance, though, and bring us back to the hope in Jesus that we first understood. Consider how Peter reminded the Christians of his day of this very fact in the salutation of his second epistle:
"To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ."
Brothers, remember that God sees you every day as perfect, standing in Jesus' righteousness that is neither added nor diminished by anything you have done or failed to do.
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Praise the Lord, thank you for posting Jeff. I am often caught in the performance trap and feel as if the good Lord is smiling down on me some day's because of what I have done. THANK JESUS that it has never been based on what I have done or I would have been finished years ago brother!
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