Fearlessly CourageousDesk of Dennis Piller2 6 2023Click for Audio
The Gift of Effort in a Sea of Grace. Are we saved?
I was one of the millions of disillusioned Christians who prayed, accepted, and invited Jesus into my heart…and as far as I knew….nothing else was required of me. It is a very dangerous thing to lead people to think they are Christians by reciting words of faith but never really making Jesus the Lord of their lives. Yes, I learned that we drink the milk of his word before we are capable of eating the meat of it. 1 Cor 3:2 But it still means I need to be feeding on God. Learning about God. Having a hunger to not be the same as before.
When my children stop eating, I know they are sick. When a Christian isn’t eating God’s word. He cannot be well.
John 4:24 “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must bring Him true spiritual worship." we cannot know that without knowing Jesus…knowing God and what he had to say about walking in the truth of the gospel. When they have not Biblically responded to the Gospel, I must question whether they are really Gods. Whether they really accepted Jesus in their hearts as the King of Kings. They did have a moment…God touched them and they accepted him into their lives. Mark 4:19 But the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.” Matt in chapter 12:22 said it similarly: “someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word making it unfruitful”
1 Peter 2:2 “Desire God's pure word as newborn babies desire milk. Then you will grow in your salvation. … Be like newborn babies, always thirsty for the pure spiritual milk” Desiring God changes everything. I can flip a switch, but I don’t provide electricity. I can turn on a faucet, but I can’t make the water flow. There will be no light and no liquid refreshmentwithout someone else providing it.
David Mathis editor of Desiring God said: “The essence of the Christian life,” says one seasoned saint, “is learning to fight for joy in a way that does not replace grace.” We cannot earn God’s grace or make it flow apart from his free gift. But we can position ourselves to go on getting should he keep giving. We can “fight to walk in the paths where he has promised his blessings” (John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God, 43–44). We can ready ourselves for receiving along his regular route sometimes called “the spiritual disciplines.
In 1 Tim 4:7 it says: “Train yourself for godliness” Discipline yourself for growth. Take regular action to get more of God in your mind and your heart, and echo him in your life — this is “godliness.”It’s a gift, and we receive it as we become it.
Paul’s own reliance on God for ongoing grace is a powerful testimony to this means-of-grace dynamic. He says in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “by the grace of God I am what I am . . . . I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” God’s grace didn’t make Paul passive but supplied the energy for discipline, and every ounce of energy expended was all of grace.
Or Romans 15:18, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me.” Jesus’s grace didn’t mean accomplishing this purpose despite Paul, or apart from him, but through him. Where does Paul get the power to labor and expend such spiritual effort? “I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (Colossians 1:29).
How to Receive the Gift of EffortSo, Paul says to every believer, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” because of this great promise: “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13). And so, the author of Hebrews closes his epistle with a prayer “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight” (Hebrews 13:20–21).
The way to receive the gift of God’s empowering our actions is to do the actions. If he gives the gift of effort, we receive that gift by expending the effort. When he gives the grace of growing in holiness, we don’t receive that gift apart from becoming more holy. When he gives us the desire to get more of him in his word, or in prayer, or among his people, we don’t receive that gift withoutexperiencing the desire and living the pursuits which flow from it.
Lay Yourself in the Way of AllurementZacchaeus may have been a wee little man, but he modeled this big reality by positioning himself along the path of grace. He couldn’t force Jesus’s hand, he couldn’t make grace flow, but he could put himself along the path where Grace was coming (Luke 19:1–10). The same was true of blind Bartimaeus (Luke 18:35–43). He couldn’t earn the restoration of his sight, but he could position himself along the route of grace where Jesus might give the gift as he passed that way.Where are you positioned today? Are you a Zacchaeus? Look around you. What are you a part of? How are you putting yourself out there for the sake of the Gospel? Look in the mirror. He says if we judge ourselves we need not be judged by others. Tauren Wells. Citizen of Heavenhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwirdlbkUD8&list=RDCLAK5uy_mU14EejSbDsfLuPc9KpNzoC0o-YQvi6I4&index=5
