A Rejection of Mediocrity

Dear Jess,

Thank you so much for asking me those questions. I will do my best to answer, but I know that my best cannot be quite good enough unless God helps me. I ask Him to help me explain this to you, and I ask Him to help you understand. James 1 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given.” We know that God will give us wisdom when we need it.

Your question has a very simple answer: yes. Jesus forgives all our sin. But He doesn’t just forgive because He forgets that we sinned or pretends it isn’t a big deal. He forgives because He already paid for every one of our sins.

When Jesus died, He was paying for every time that you and I have ever lied or gotten angry or disobeyed. He suffered more than anyone else in history, because our sins were so, so bad.

Some people say that we are all really good, but that the little sins we do make us sinners. That isn’t true at all. We aren’t good. We are sinners, and we sin because of who we are.

Because we are so selfish and sinful, we deserve to have God throw us out. God does not need us. God cannot use sinful selfish people. Our selfishness makes us angry with God for no reason; we don’t want to do anything for God. God should really just get rid of us.

But the good news is wonderful! God is “rich” in mercy. Just like a rich person has enough money to do anything they want to do, God has enough mercy to do whatever He wants to do. And God is very, very rich in mercy.

We were so selfish and sinful that we could do nothing at all to impress God. We were like dead men. But God has enough love and mercy to do anything He wants to do. When we were weak and helpless, Jesus died for us. That is why God’s mercy is so perfect. Instead of forgetting about our sins, He took our sins away from us and put them on Jesus. Instead of the Father punishing us for our sins, He punished Jesus for them.

That takes a lot of mercy. But God’s mercy is even bigger than all of our sins. God does not want to save us from our sins and then let us continue being sinful. His mercy is big enough to come inside of us and change our hearts from the inside out. He kills our selfishness and sin and replaces it with a desire to love and please Him. This way, everyone sees how powerful and merciful He is, because He made terrible sinners into obedient children.

“All of us used to follow the desires of our sinful nature. We were objects of wrath because of who we were. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead. God did this so that for all eternity He shows how rich His grace is, because we will all see His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. We are God’s projects, given life because of Jesus, so that we can do good works that will glorify God.”

Because God saved us from punishment and saved us from continuing in sin, we love Him! “We love Him because He first loved us.” Because of how much we love Him, we don’t want to do anything that makes Him unhappy. We know that every sin we commit was paid for by Jesus, but we don’t want to sin because it does not please God.

God has already shown how rich His mercy is! Now, it is our job to show the world how powerful His love is. We have to show the whole world that His love is powerful enough to save us from our selfishness. We want to do good works that glorify God!

But it is not easy. While we are still alive on this earth, the sin that is still part of our bodies will keep on making us sin. But now, we have a desire to love God even though our bodies are still wicked. The Bible and the Holy Spirit help us to love God even though our bodies only want to sin.

As long as we are alive in these bodies, we will keep doing things that displease God. But we will do them less and less, because we desire more and more to please God.

“Thank God, that even though you were once slaves of sin, you have been set free, and have become slaves to righteousness! For just as you used to desire impurity and lawlessness, making you sin more and more, now you desire righteousness, which glorifies God! Those shameful things only would have led to death before. But now you have been set free from sin. This righteousness leads to eternal life! For the result of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I have been saved for a while now, but I still do things that don’t please God. But I hate it! Even though sin feels good to my body, I don’t want to hurt God’s heart! I don’t understand my own actions. Instead of always pleasing God, I do the things I know God hates! But it is not my heart that sins; it is just the sin that is still present inside me. I want to do everything that pleases God, but I’m just not strong enough.

We are pitiful! But God uses the Bible and the Holy Spirit to deliver us little by little from our sinning. And even though we will continue to sin here and there, His mercy is strong enough to save us every single time.

If we say that we are following Jesus but do not desire to please Him, we are lying. If we desire to please God because we see how much He loves us, then He has promised to forgive us and make us clean from sin. Every single time. God is rich in mercy.

I pray that God makes this easy for you to understand! I love you!

Your big brother David

Working in a fast-paces restaurant half the week and living at a secular university invites a good deal of foul language. At times, it’s rubbed off on me. I’ve had to watch my language at times; now and then I let expletives slip under my breath. It’s one of many things I’ve been convicted about, and one of many things God is working on in my life.

I still use exclamations that make some people uncomfortable. “Gosh” is technically a euphemism derived from “God”, but it’s developed enough of an identity of its own that I don’t equate it with blasphemy.

“Gosh, these hot wings are amazing.”

But every now and then, so-called “minced oaths” are really inadequate. Particularly when I’m really glad at something God’s done. Things that He does deserve an exclamation of surprise more illustrative of awe. “Gosh, I’m blessed” is almost blasphemous in its disconcern.

Would it be less blasphemous (or altogether profitable) to use God’s name as an expression of the scale of awe and gratitude you feel for what He’s done?

“God, I’m thankful for grace.”

It’s one thing to use God’s name in place of a four-letter word. But reverse blasphemy poses an interesting question, I think.

David

Most people are familiar with Paul’s use of a race as a metaphor for the Christian life in his first letter to the Corinthians:

“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.

And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air.” 1 Corinthians 9:24-26

How do we run this race with certainty? We know that as long as we live on earth, we have to deal with the effects of our flesh. Paul wrote in Romans that the good he wants to do, he doesn’t do, and the evil he doesn’t want to do, he ends up practicing. We can say we believe in the perseverance of the saints, but what kind of perseverance is it if our lives are being controlled by the flesh? How can we run with certainty when we still struggle with the flesh?

I don’t believe that Paul is merely saying that the certainty is in our ultimate perseverance. We can persevere in the race itself, not just after our life is over. But how?

If anyone knew perseverance in the face of the flesh’s desires, it was David. Here’s what he wrote about sanctification:

“My soul clings to the dust;
Revive me according to Your word.
I have declared my ways, and You answered me;
Teach me Your statutes.
Make me understand the way of Your precepts;
So shall I meditate on Your wonderful works.
My soul melts from heaviness;
Strengthen me according to Your word.
Remove from me the way of lying,
And grant me Your law graciously.
I have chosen the way of truth;
Your judgments I have laid before me.
I cling to Your testimonies;
O Lord, do not put me to shame!
I will run the course of Your commandments,
For You shall enlarge my heart.”
Psalm 119 – Dalet

David knew acutely the hurt that comes when we give way to the flesh. How can a man honor God continually? How can a man run the race with certainty? Because God has promised that He will strengthen us. “I will run the course of Your commandments, for You shall enlarge my heart.” Were it not for God strengthening us, it would be impossible for us to continually grow closer to Him and put off sin. But with God, all things are possible.

Paul writes in Romans 8, “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by Whom we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’” When you are a child of God, He will give you the power to run with certainty.  As we obey Him, He will strengthen us.

It’s a vicious cycle. The more we obey God, the more He strengthens us, and the more we seek to obey Him. Terribly vicious.

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-4

Isn’t it amazing – what God did? Sending Christ to atone for our sins was more than we ever deserved. Imputing His righteousness to us, that we might appear holy and blameless before the Father, was more than we ever deserved. But just as He justified us, He also adopted us and gave us life in the Spirit, that we would even fulfill the righteous requirement of the law through the Spirit, despite still living trapped by the flesh.

What a glorious, true, complete salvation!

Merry Christmas.

David