Complete inadequacy, part 2
posted by Jesse on Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 12:38 pm
What is it that really frustrates you? I know that for me, there’s too many things to list. As a recovering obsessive compulsive perfectionist (is there supposed to be a dash between “obsessive” and “compulsive?” See what I mean?), there are way too many things that frustrate me. But, by God’s grace, I’m learning not to fret the small stuff and not drive my wife insane!
Anyway, on a less perfectionist and more human level, one thing that really frustrates me is a reaction that I get occasionally from people when I do something nice for them but it is completely unexpected. Now, I know that we’re not supposed to do nice things for others outside of the month of December, but sometimes I forget and let generosity get the best of me. I’m sure that you’ve experienced this too, when the person first tries to reject the gift, favor, complement, etc. with things like, “No, you REALLY don’t have to do that.” Or, “Oh I think I can do that myself.” Then there’s my personal favorite, “You shouldn’t be doing that, you’re a missionary. I should be doing something for you!” Following the rejection phase is the payback phase. This is when a person feels the need to repay the nice gesture with a nice gesture of their own. I’m definitely not saying that it’s bad to do something nice for somebody when they’ve done so to you, but when it is done with a sense of guilt or obligation it’s more insulting than anything else because the original nice gesture was done with no expectations or “strings attached.”
The fact is that it takes a lot of humility to just accept generosity from some one else without feeling like you need to somehow pay them back for it. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve failed to do this! I’m sure that we’ve all found ourselves on both ends of this situation.
OK, so how much does this relate to your Christian life? Probably more than you think. The verse we looked at in part 1 was Galatians 2:20, in which Paul is contrasting the Christian life being lived by the law, or by the life of Christ in us. In the next verse he says, “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” What is it that frustrates God and His grace? It is when Christians try to make themselves righteous by keeping the law, whether it be the Old Testament law or some kind of self-imposed set of rules and regulations of “what a good Christian should and shouldn’t do.” This is exactly the problem that Paul was addressing to this church in the city of Galatia. They had been convinced that while salvation was solely by God’s grace, it was now up to them to keep laws, obey commands, and follow man-made religious rules in order to make God happy with them, earn His love and favor, and to be “right with God.” Paul urges them to “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. (5:1)” In other words, be free and live free from the law because all it can do is show us our failure; it can never give us life!
See, the problem again is that we have a hard time accepting grace. We realize that there’s nothing we can do to earn our own salvation - that it is entirely by God’s grace - but we somehow feel like we owe God a great debt that must be paid back. So, we spend all our time and effort trying to pay God back for His grace. Not only is repaying grace impossible, but it is also insulting to God! We must realize that God saved us simply because He loves us, not because of anything we can do for Him; and this does not change once we are saved. We can still do nothing for God. It is our responsibility to rest and abide in Jesus Christ, and He will work through us in whatever way He wants to.
“without me ye can do nothing” - Jesus
Category: christianity
