Who Is God?

The pluralism of the planet we live on today is greater than any time in history. At the same time, that fact seems to be a contradiction to the growing merging of customs, cultures and convictions. When I was a child the countries and cultures of the world each had their own distinctive characteristics that plainly delineated one from another. Those differences are becoming less and less evident today. The Internet,television and the ease of travel from one side of the world to the other has caused much of global life to blend together in a way that syncretism seems to be the order of the day. Syncretism is the attempted merging of of differing belief systems.

One area where this "coming together" shows up plainly is the way we all perceive God. The word God is a title, not a name. To use the word elicits different meanings to different people. I remember speaking to a group of college students in China one time and mentioning Jesus Christ. They had never even heard His name and asked me who He is. I answered, "He is the Son of God." "Which God?" they replied. I think that was my first awakening to the fact that the word I've used all my life and took for granted that the word was understood by others the way I understood it doesn't mean the same thing to everybody. I remember another time when a young man in India told me he was fasting to his god and as we talked about it, I discovered he was actually fasting and worshiping a "monkey god" that day. Seriously, the man was fasting to a monkey.

So when we say "God," it seems important at times to clarify what we mean by our use of the word. Even among Christians, there is a foggy understanding of the word. Depending on where you grew up in church, chances are that your mind goes to one member of the Godhead while the others are marginalized. For instance, if you grew up in a liturgical church like Presbyterian or Episcopalian, you probably think of the Father. If you grew up in a Baptist or Methodist church, you most likely think of the Son. If your roots are in the Pentecostal or Charismatic world, the emphasis was on the Spirit.

Our God is a Triune God. He exists as three-in-one. Understanding the importance of the Trinity is of more importance than many Christians realize. Why does it matter that our God is triune in nature? It's because that reality sets forth the fact that our God is first and foremost relational. In the eternal realm, the Father, Son and Spirit have always and forever will exist in a circle of intimate love shared among the Trinity. That shared love is the most important truth we can speak about God.

John said, "God is love" (1 John 4:7-8). That is the most important thing that can be said about Him. When we speak of God, we speak of Shared Love. Unless we understand that, our own concept of Him will be skewed at best and completely perverted at worst. To understand the Circle of Love in heaven may be the most important thing we can grasp about Deity.

The God of the Christian is to be known as the One who loves. The very purpose for creation was to expand that circle of agape by bringing humanity into the Group Hug. By the work of the cross, that is exactly what has happened. To speak of God is to speak of Love. Anything we know and say about Him must point to Love. If our conclusions about who God is cannot be embedded in Love, then we have come to faulty conclusions.
Everything about Him must be seen through the lens of love. Love is the source for every action that flows from Him. For Love to act in a way that is unloving would be contrary to His very nature and God does not -- God cannot -- contradict Himself. His Integrity and character will not be impugned by an expression of non-love.

If you think you've seen something in the Bible that portrays God as unloving, I encourage you to realize that the way we know the character of God is by Jesus and only by Jesus. "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe" (Hebrews 1:1-2). If you want to know who God is, look at Jesus and only Jesus. Look any further and confusion is inevitable. I can't reconcile some of the things I see in the Bible about God, especially in the Old Testament, but I don't have to reconcile them. Jesus came to show me what my Father is like. I suppose that when I get to heaven I can get all the answers about some of those hard passages in the Old Testament if it still matters to me, but I doubt if it will. So in the meantime, I'll just keep looking to Jesus to understand God. That's what the New Testament teaches us to do. Jesus, Himself, said, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father" (John 14:9). So, look no further.

Our God is Love. God may exercise justice but He is Love. God may express wrath, but He is Love. God may possess wisdom, but He is Love. Add anything to the list you know about God, but be sure that you understand those qualities through the lens of Love or you'll miss the mark. Love is the Source of everything that comes from Him. When we understand that, it will reshape our faulty ideas that have contributed to a misunderstanding of God.

Many people talk about their god and describe him as a judge who must be appeased. Let's not fall into that trap. When we talk about our God, let's make sure that whatever we say about Him is fully flavored with the reality of the love He has poured out on all humanity. Who is God? God is love. That is is the DNA of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the message people need to hear and the truth that will reach them when nothing else will.

(For more teaching on this subject, check out my Sunday Preaching video at www.gracewalk.org. I'm currently going through a series called, "Dancing With Deity". This article is a part of what I'm teaching there right now.)

Faith Expressing Love

The preaching of the cross is the proclamation that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Now He has given us the ministry of sharing this wonderful message of reconciliation.

Faith doesn’t cause something to happen to the person who believes. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant it. Faith is the work of the Spirit awakening us to the reality of what Christ has accomplished so that the objective reality of His finished work becomes our subjective experience. We don’t cause Him to do something for us by our faith. He has already done all that can be done at the cross. Faith is the recognition of that reality.

Jesus has lovingly drawn us back into the divine circle of Agape love that has always existed among the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To know and believe that is to live out of the original plan for which we were created. It is to live from the Tree of Life.
To live otherwise is to live from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and to be doomed to a lifestyle governed by the tyranny of judgmentalism in which every thought, word and deed must withstand the scrutiny of a moralism that Adam was told to avoid at all costs. We have been delivered from the death sentence of moral living and have been set free for miraculous living.

Our lives are nothing less than an expression of our Triune God, pouring out His love through us like the water shooting out of a fire hydrant. His goal is to soak everybody with the awareness of His Agape and He intends to do that through you, His favorite instrument to use for such a task.

Changing Stations From AM TO FM

Some people have a negativity being broadcast inside them practically all the time. Sometimes it is a conscious broadcast. At others it is subconscious. This negativity causes them to look at a scenario and immediately see the negative aspects of it.

“Do you want to get well?” Jesus asks them. They don’t even hear the question. Like the crippled man beside the pool of Bethesda, their response is immediately a negative, “why it won’t work for me” type of response.

They are prophets of doom to themselves. “I’ve always been this way. It’s just the way I am. That could never work because . . . My situation is different.” They have a thousand reasons why things won’t change for them. They will say they wish thing could change, but then prosecute their own case by reminding themselves of all the reasons why things never will.

They are masters of imagining potential scenarios and superimposing a negative outcome onto them. Their tendency is to play out a scene in their mind that hasn’t even happened yet. It is borrowing trouble when none even exists at the moment. It is appropriating negative faith that things will turn out in negative way.

This kind of negativity is a sour note that will deeply affect any of us who hear it if we don’t change stations. Here’s how it happens: As the discordant background “music” plays in our minds, it creates a certain mood within us. That mood influences the way we think about things. When you combine the way a person both thinks and feels, together these create a certain paradigm on life – a negative one.

This negative paradigm determines our expectations when we face any situation in life. That expectation is nothing less than a reflection of our faith. Jesus said, “According to your faith, so be it unto you.” It becomes clear, then, that some of us are going through life expressing great faith – negative faith! Then we wonder why things don’t seem to “go our way.” According to your faith be it unto you.

What is the attitude you have toward challenges you experience in your own life? Some years ago I read the story of Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest. Of all the possible people to hold this distinction, Hillary was an unlikely candidate. He had lived a simple life as a beekeeper in Auckland, New Zealand. Deep inside him was an idea that most people would have considered ridiculous. He wanted to climb the mountain.

On May 29, 1953 he accomplished his goal, scaling straight up 29,000 feet to the top. Reaching his goal wasn’t something that came without its challenges. He had tried to climb Mt. Everest a year earlier but had failed to reach the top. His response to that failure is what set him apart from others.

A few weeks after his failed attempt a group in England asked him to speak to their membership. When he walked onto the stage, they greeted him with cheers and thunderous applause. They obviously recognized the value of the attempt he had made, but Hillary didn’t see it that way. He wasn’t content to stop at the place of almost seeing this goal realized.

Walking over to one side of the platform, he pointed to a picture of Mount Everest hanging on the wall. Then he clenched his fist and loudly cried out, “Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I’ll beat you next time because you’ve grown all you’re ever going to grow, but I’m still growing!”

Hillary had tapped into a truth that we all need to understand. Where we are today doesn’t have to be the final word on where we will be in the end. God does have a plan for your life and He will fulfill it in you. Do you believe that? Are you still growing in the area of faith or have you resigned yourself to the lie that reaching the mountaintops in life is beyond your potential. Understand that your mountaintop is nothing more or less than fulfilling the plan God has for you.

Why did Israel wander in the wilderness for forty years? It was because of their negative faith. The Bible says, “they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:19). Too many people have blamed God, other people, or just their own “bad luck” for not reaching their destiny, when the truth is that the fault lies squarely on their own refusal to believe in God’s basic goodness and in His desire to guide them in fulfilling His will. Are you waiting for God to act? Has it occurred to you that God may be waiting for you?

Have you been short-circuiting your life by appropriating negative outcomes in the situations you face in life? Is there an underlying AM (awful mentality) station playing in the background inside your head all the time? Change stations to FM (faith mentality)!

Faithless thinking doesn’t really exist because there is no such thing as an absolute absence of belief. Put any of us in any situation and we will begin to draw conclusions about our circumstances based on what we see. We will evaluate our situation and mentally predict how things are going to unfold as times progresses. In other words, we will come to believe that we know what our future will hold.

Those beliefs become our faith system. Once it is established, it becomes very hard to think outside the walls of expectation we have built around ourselves. We box ourselves in by our limited thinking, which developed through a human assessment of the details of our lives at a given moment in time. Functioning now from a negative faith, we begin to look for evidence in our circumstances to validate that our initial analysis of the situation was right. “See, I knew it!” we affirm when visible evidence tends to support our negative perspective.

The trap tightens its grip on us as we affirm again and again that “this is just the way things are” and as we appropriate hopelessness that things can ever change. Our faith, negative faith, grows by leaps and bounds. Every day seems to take us further from hope that things will ever change.

I’ve heard people say that we shouldn’t put God in a box. “Let Him out of the box!” they’ll challenge others. Let me tell you something: It’s not God who is in the box. It’s us. God is too big and too powerful to let our puny negative faith box Him in.
Let’s not flatter ourselves by thinking that we are squelching God. “Come out of your box and believe Me and I’ll do “great and mighty things like you can’t imagine,” says our Father of grace. (See Jeremiah 33:3)

Begin to expect things to go your way because God is “for you.” Recognize that God’s grace equals guaranteed success. Approach life with an optimistic expectancy, based on the goodness of God.

God once told Abraham, “I will give you the land as far as you can see.” There is an interesting principle embedded in that statement that raises a question: What can you see? Do you see life never advancing, never expanding? Maybe the only thing that needs to change for you to move boldly into the fulfillment of your potential is a change of focus.

(This blog is an excerpt from my book, Walking In The Will of God. For more information on the book, click this link: http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=555

If You Think You May Have Married The Wrong Man

“How can something become the right thing when it clearly started out as a wrong thing? Traveling the wrong way on a street can never lead to the right destination, no matter what you do,” Linda said to me during her counseling appointment. She and Tom had been married for six years when her mom died at a relatively young age. The effect of her mother’s death had caused Linda to rethink the things she valued in life. Unlike Tom, she had grown up in a Christian home and had begun to follow Christ at an early age.

Like many youth, when Linda moved away to college she wandered away from the anchoring truths she had learned at home. One of the things she had always been taught was that it would be a serious mistake to date an unbeliever – being “unequally yoked” – that was the biblical phrase her parents had shown her. But by the time she met Tom at a fraternity party, rules from back home about whom to date and not date were the last thing on her mind. Tom was fun to be with. He seemed to value her and make her feel good about herself. He told her often how beautiful she was. He made her laugh. Little by little, she found herself falling in love with him.

As their relationship became more and more serious, she had wondered at times about Tom’s spiritual life but she couldn’t bring herself to ask. It’s not like she had been the model Christian in front of him, so what right did she have to ask Tom about his spiritual life. That’s the kind of logic that had led her.

Finally, Tom proposed to her and she accepted. Her mother had asked her about Tom’s relationship to Christ and Linda had told her that he was a Christian, although the truth was that she didn’t know what his thoughts were about all that. They soon married and through the years it had never been an issue – until now. Her mother’s death had changed something in Linda and now both hers and Tom’s spiritual lives mattered to her for the first time.

She and Tom had talked about life after death when her mother died. For the first time she asked him about his own spiritual history and his view on the matter of faith in Christ. He told her that he had never given it much thought and that, while he respected her view and even her renewed interest in spiritual things, it wasn’t something that particularly interested him. He said that he was happy with his life the way it was.

In one of our early counseling sessions together, Linda said that she believed Tom thought her renewed interest in spiritual matters would subside as she adjusted to her mother’s death. But it didn’t happen that way. Instead the desire to live out the faith of her childhood only intensified as the days passed.

She began to read her Bible every day. She found a growing hunger to read books written by Christian authors and began to be involved a newly formed Bible study she had been invited by a friend to attend. She even had gone to a Christian Women’s Retreat one weekend with another friend from a local church congregation in the area.

Tom didn’t oppose any of this and, while Linda was thankful for that fact, it wasn’t enough. Her problem was that he didn’t particularly support it either. His attitude seemed to be a “live-and-let-live” perspective on the matter. She wanted more than that from him.

“I know I should be thankful that Tom isn’t against my growing faith,” she said, “but I want him to share it with me and I don’t know how that can possibly happen since he’s not even a Christian and seems to have no interest in all this. I can’t help but think about the fact that, although Tom and I have always loved each other, I might have been wrong to marry him. The Bible does say not to be unequally yoked with an unbeliever and that’s exactly what I did when I married Tom knowing deep down that he probably wasn’t a Christian.”

Linda’s frustration about her husband is far more common among Christian women than many realize. It’s one thing to be married to a man who is a Christian but not as enthusiastic about his faith as a wife might like, but what about when you come to realize that you’re married to somebody who doesn’t even share the basic core values of your faith? If the foundation of your life is Jesus Christ and a relationship with Him isn’t even on the radar of your husband’s personal interest, is there any way that God can bless your relationship? The Bible plainly says that light can’t have communion with darkness, so how can God do something that would seem to be in contrast the that very fact?

It’s a legitimate question that deserves an answer. If you find yourself married to an unbeliever and you let your mind come to rest on the spiritual differences you see between the two of you and on how there is such a spiritual gulf that you can’t seem to bridge, it will certainly lead to a place of apprehension and fear about any possibility for having a strong Christian marriage. Let your thoughts stay on that road and meditate on it long enough and it’s possible to even reach the place where you wonder if you even should be married to your husband. So, before we move on to an answer, let me go ahead and tell you plainly. If you’ve been thinking this way, you’re going to have to change the way you think. Appropriating negative faith about your husband, his spiritual condition, and your future together isn’t going to help the matter.

The key to moving through this kind of situation is to change your focus. Putting your attention on what you may believe to be spiritual deficits in your husband isn’t going to take you to a good place in any way. Focusing on whether you made a right decision or a wrong decision then doesn’t offer an ounce of help now. While nobody would wisely suggest that the best scenario is for a believer and unbeliever to marry each other, there’s no benefit in going back now and reliving the past. We’re not talking about premarital advice here. We’re talking about a marriage that has already happened. The relevant question isn’t what should you have done. The question is, what do you do now? So stay focused on the right question.

Our Father has identified Himself by the name, “I AM,” not “I WAS.” In other words, He is a present tense God who will work in your situation right now, regardless of what has happened in your past. So the first thing for you to do is stop living in the past by focusing on what you should or shouldn’t have done. It’s done now and it is what it is, so don’t torment yourself by living back there. So the first thing to do if you think you may have married the wrong person is stop living in the past and stop focusing on that question at all. It will lead nowhere good.

The next thing to do if you think you married the wrong man is to put your eyes on your Sovereign God. Set aside biblical questions about believers and unbelievers marrying each other. What does that have to do with you now? Again, it’s done and you can’t go back in time and do things differently even if you wanted to. What value is there in wallowing in doubts about decisions already made? There is none, so don’t do it.
Instead, focus on your Father and who He is to you.

When you’ve stopped obsessing on the rightness or wrongness of your decision to marry your husband, you’ll be able to focus on the reality of who your Father is and how He figures into this whole situation. When your faith moves you in that direction you’re going to find the mental relief you need about all this.

Sometimes in life we have to come back to foundational truths to stand on in order to find a sense of security. In this case of whether or not you married the right person, here’s an eternal truth that will give you a strong foundation if you choose to stand upon it: Your Heavenly Father has always been and will always be in control of your life. Nothing you’ve ever done nor ever will do is outside His supervision or beyond what He allows you to do.

That may sound simple but it is actually very profound and can bring peace to you if you’ll embrace this truth. Your Father, who loves you more than He loves His own life, has always had control over everything you’ve done and that includes the decision you made to marry your husband. He could have stopped it and He didn’t, so you can trust that He will work it out now in a way that is for your highest good and His greatest glory.

How could God take a wrong thing and turn it into a right thing? The same question could be asked about the cross of Jesus Christ. Was it a right thing for evil men to crucify Jesus? Not at all, but our God stands above all decisions made by humans and has the ability to redeem them for His glory. He took the wrong thing they did at the cross that day and transformed it into the best thing that humanity will ever know or experience for all eternity. So if He could take something as evil as men crucifying His own Son and turn that around into something good, do you really think that the fact you married an unbeliever is going to tie His hands behind His back so that He can’t work in your marriage to accomplish something good?

Remember, I’m not writing now about the wisdom or biblical teaching concerning whether or not one following Jesus is to marry an unbeliever. I’m writing for the person who already has entered that marriage and I’m seeking to help that person. The best help I can offer you is to stop analyzing the whole thing, stop worrying about whether you’ve crippled any chance of a blessed marriage, stop thinking negative things about your future and put your hope in the One who loves you more than anybody ever has or ever will.

The Bible says that One has written out the diary and filled in the calendar for your lifetime before you lived a single second of them. Setting aside the question of whether He decreed it or simply wrote what He saw in advance, the fact remains that nothing in your life ever catches Him by surprise. He knew it all before any of it happened and that certainly would include whom you married. So, if your Father knew in advance and He has permitted it, you can be sure that He isn’t biting his fingernails right now and worrying about the dismal future you’ve set in motion and that He can do nothing about. He has everything under control. He always has, so you don’t have to live with fears and doubts about the past, present or your future.

You can safely assume that you are with the man your Father wants you to be with in life. You can know that He loves your husband and is working in His life right now, whether you can see it or not. You can trust that God’s Spirit is more interested in your husband’s spiritual fulfillment that even you could be and that He certainly isn’t going to give up on him.

The bottom line is that you can relax and know that your life and marriage aren’t moving forward in a helter-skelter sort of way. The Divine Architect of your life has everything under control and He will see that it all comes together according to his plan and His schedule.

Sunday Morning

Lest I start a firestorm, I'll just post it and let you draw your own conclusions :)

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

An Excerpt From Grace Walk

If you are just beginning to seriously contemplate the difference between walking in legalism and under grace, you probably are asking the question, "Is he saying that since grace covers all sins, I can go out and sin if that's what I want to do?" Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. However, before you throw the book down, finish this paragraph. You see, the question about being able to go right on in sin since grace covers it all is not new. When Paul preached grace, people asked the same question. The whole fifth chapter of Romans is about how we are dead to laws regulating right and wrong. Then Paul begins Romans 6 asking the question he knew would be on everybody's mind.

"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" He knew that they would be asking that question, just like people do today whenever pure grace is taught. He answers the question by reminding them that they died to sin. Chapters three and four dealt with how we are now a new person whose nature is to live righteously and how that our old nature is dead. Yes, you can sin. However when you understand your identity in Christ, you don't want to sin like before.

Understanding your identity produces a desire for intimate fellowship with your heavenly Father. If you don't know who you are, you will see yourself as a servant who must make restitution for your sins. Servants find it difficult to enjoy an intimate love relationship with their masters. However, sons and fathers are able to enjoy each other. Do you see yourself primarily as God's child or as His servant?

When a Christian refuses to believe that he is totally accepted by God or when he doesn't understand his identity, it's hard to be intimate with Him. Intimacy develops between two people as they feel an increasing willingness to share themselves with each other. This can only happen between the Christian and God as the believer comes to a biblical understanding of his relationship to his Heavenly Father.

Love And New Testament Commandments

The only genuine motivation in the Christian life that will consistently sustain a godly lifestyle is love. Any other source of motivation will eventually fail. If contemporary Christians spent as much time developing loving intimacy with Christ as spent in defining proper Christian behavior, the world would be a different place. It isn't without basis that the unsaved world mistakenly believes that Christianity is primarily a religion which outlines a particular behavioral system. Many Christians make that their focus too. They want to know His commandments in every area of life so they can keep them.

What place do the commandments of the New Testament have in the life of a believer? Does being free from the law mean that we don't need to obey the biblical commands? There are two ways to view the commands of the New Testament. One position is law oriented and the other is from a love perspective which stems from understanding grace.

A Christian who views the commandments of the New Testament from the standpoint of law sees them in a negative way. To him, the commands are something that he ought to do. They hang heavy over him, constantly reminding him of the all the things he must do to be fully obedient to God. They invoke a compelling sense of need in the life of a legalist. He feels that he should try to obey them, because that is what God expects.

Mark came to me one day with his spiritual journal in hand. "I want to show you something," he said. He opened his journal to a particular entry with five specific goals that he had decided were necessary to cause him to experience spiritual victory. The list included spending thirty minutes in prayer each day, reading five chapters of the Bible, leading a daily devotional time for his family, giving materially to someone every week, and witnessing to someone each day. "I consider these things to be basic to the Christian life," he explained, "but I can't even do this consistently.

"What can I do to motivate myself to be faithful in these areas?" Mark had his neatly packaged list of commandments that he believed he must obey to be victorious. Yet he viewed the commandments from a perspective of law, not grace. Do you remember what law does to a person? It arouses sinful passions, consequently he couldn't even obey these basic commands. As a result he was experiencing major anxiety. This is how it always is with a legalist. He views the commands of the New Testament with a sense of guilt and self condemnation. He can never do enough to feel that God is pleased. Even if Mark had been able to successfully obey the commands he thought most important, he would have still have been frustrated. The one word that Law will never say is "enough." That's why legalists can never be satisfied. They grasp for more and more rules, trying in vain to find fulfillment through behavior. However, no matter how much they do, it's never enough.

There is better way to view the New Testament commands. As you move forward into the grace walk, a mental shift takes place which causes you to begin to see the commandments in a positive way. You begin to understand them from a basis of love.

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. — 1 John 5:3

A grace perspective causes us to see the commands not as an obligation, but as an opportunity for the life of Christ to be revealed through one's lifestyle. We want to respond in obedience to them because the commandments are a beautiful picture of the many ways that Christ's life can be seen through our lifestyle. Those set free by grace don't face the commandments with self condemnation, but with spiritual anticipation that Jesus Christ will reveal Himself through them as He lives His life in them. Jesus didn't break the Law two thousand years ago, but fulfilled it. The Christian abides in Christ, chooses to obey His commandments, and then acts in faith. Every commandment is another way that Christ can be seen in him!

Are you struggling for victory in your Christian life? Don't focus on the commandments as a doorway to victory. Christ is your victory! As you learn to abide in Him and He expresses His life through you, the commandments will become a blessing, not a burden. You will experience the joy of walking in grace, not guilt.

Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15 NAS).

When I was a legalist, I read this verse to say, "Keep my commandments if you love me." That understanding left me trying to do what He says in order to prove that I loved Him. However, that is not what the verse says. Jesus said that if you love Him, you will keep his commandments. Do you see the difference? One approach translates into a burden, while the other is a release from struggling. Failure to keep the commandments is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. The real issue in disobedience is a love problem. If you wrestle with being consistently obedient, the remedy for the problem is to love Him more! However, that answer raises another question — How do we grow in our love for our heavenly Father?

Imagine Jesus physically coming into the room where you are now reading this book. He walks over to where you sit and the two of you begin to talk. As he is turning to leave the room, you say, "Jesus, before you leave, please allow me to ask one question. I've spent a great deal of time and energy on different things in this world. Now I want the rest of my time on this earth to really count. What one commandment is more important to you than anything else?" Now, think about it. What do you suppose He would answer? It isn't necessary to guess the answer because someone did ask Him that question during His earthly ministry. A religious leader asked:

"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment."— Matthew 22:36-38"

When asked which is the greatest commandment God has given, Jesus said that it is to love Him. A person's love for God is directly proportionate to their knowledge of Him. This is why knowing Him intimately is of supreme importance. A main concern of Jesus immediately before he was arrested and separated from his disciples was that they should have a deep love for the Father. Consider the final words of his prayer in the upper room at the last supper.

O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them. — John 17:24-26

Jesus said that he had declared the name of the Father to the disciples so that they might share in the love that exists between the Father and the Son. To declare the Father's name literally means to reveal His character. It was the goal of Jesus to reveal the Father so that the love of the Father and Son would be in the disciples too.

The ministry of the Holy Spirit today is to reveal God's nature in order that we might enter into a Divine love relationship. If you feel weak in your love for your heavenly Father, ask the Holy Spirit to more fully reveal Him to you each day through every circumstance that comes into your life. If you are hungry to know God, He will make himself known to you! As you come to know Him more, you will love Him more. My concept of God has changed since I have come to better understand His grace. Whereas I did see Him as a God who demanded our love, I now see Him as Someone you can't help but love as you come to know Him better. He really is lovable!

It has been a great joy to discover that God's interest in me is for a love relationship! Appropriating grace in my Christian life has given new meaning to some areas of life that I once considered Christian disciplines. A few specific things that were duty under law have now become a delight in the grace walk.

(If you would like to order Grace Walk, click this link: http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=33 If you're a FaceBook friend, you'll be given the 50% discount on one copy of the book at the checkout page when you insert the discount code you can find on my FB profile page.)

The Wonder of It All

What are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? (Psalm 8:4)

Pucker Power

Suppose I were to ask for some marital advice. The imaginary conversation might go like this: “I travel a lot, speaking in various places. I’m wondering about something. When I come home, do I have to kiss my wife?”
“You probably should,” might be the response.
“Oh, okay,” I reply. “Should it be a kiss on the mouth or on the cheek.”
“Probably on the mouth,” one might answer.
“Understood,” I say. “Can it be short little peck on the lips or does it need to be one of those long, romantic, movie type kisses?” I persist.
By now my counselor might pause and ask, “Steve, is there something wrong between you and Melanie?”

Who needs to ask advice like that? Not me! When I know Melanie is going to meet me at the airport, as she does each time I return home, I don’t sit on the airplane taxiing to the gate and pray, “Lord, I know what I should do now. I haven't seen her in days. Give me the power to kiss my wife when I see her. Lord, I need a double portion of pucker-power!” It has never happened. When I see my beautiful wife, I kiss her. I mean I really kiss her. It’s not the desire to be a good Christian husband or the goal to fulfill some responsibility in marriage that motivates me. It’s love.

Don’t try telling me the laws of marriage. I don’t want to hear it. They have nothing to do with me. I love my wife. The same is true in our relationship to Christ. In Jesus Christ, the laws don’t mean anything, but faith working through love means everything (See Galatians 5:6).

The relationship we have with Jesus Christ is the impetus for a godly lifestyle. It is a delight, not a duty for the believer who is abiding in Christ to live a lifestyle of obedience. Are there commandments in the Christian life? Of course; the New Testament gives commands for the believer but because we love Jesus, “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). When a man is in love and his wife says, “Come here and kiss me now!” it won’t be a burden for him to fulfill her command. There’s no law in that command. As the bride of Christ who loves Him, when he tells us to do something it is our pleasure to be obedient.

Get Up And Dance

I have long felt the urge to dance with life. I’m not sure if it is a sad commentary on the state of modern Christendom or of spiritual deficits in my own life, but the first time I found the desires for an authentic life articulated in the way that most closely fit my own was from a source outside the church. In fact, it was from one outside the faith.

As I read Henry David Thoreau’s, Walden Pond, the irony of the fact that he wasn’t a Christian didn’t stop me from hearing the clarion call from within my own heart to experience the deepest and fullest that life has to offer. His desire to “suck the marrow from life” described my own zest for living. What Thoreau thought he could find in nature, I knew could be found in Jesus Christ.

Imagine a life in which the fire of God so consumes you that you lose all inhibitions; a life in which you charge forth confidently into every day with the assurance that God will guarantee your success that day. This life isn’t imaginary, it’s real! When we live from the blazing glory of His love for us, that is the life we can live.

Tony Campolo once said in a speech, “Most of us are tiptoeing through life so we can reach death safely. We should be praying, ‘If I should wake before I die.’ Life can get away from you. Don’t be satisfied with just pumping blood.” There is an abundant life for the taking for those who have the assurance of God’s unconditional love and commitment to those on whom He has set His passion.

When consumed with the fire of God’s love you can say with the Psalmist, “Our God is forever and ever; He will guide us until death” (Psalm 48:14). With the confidence of David when he was surrounded and outnumbered in battle by the Philistines, we can shout to the world with assurance, “This I know, that God is for me” (Psalm 56:9)!

What is the key to living out of this fire, this Divine force which empowers us to rise above the mass mediocrity of the modern church? How can we reclaim our God-given position of the supernatural life which is our birth right? How can we be in this turbulent and transient world and still live in a way which demonstrates that we are firmly anchored in the Eternal?

The answer, of course, is Christ. The answer is always Christ. Knowing who we are in Him and who He is in us is the cornerstone upon which everything else in life is set. Knowing our union with God through Christ is paramount to the abundant life. However, one question I am continually asked is, “How do we consistently abide in Christ, allowing Him to live His life through us?”

The question is loaded in one sense because it easily lends itself to an answer which delineates particular steps one may take to abide in Christ. We must tread carefully when we approach the word how in the Christian walk lest we drift from the Who, namely Jesus Christ — the Source and Center of an authentic Christian lifestyle. How isn’t unapproachable under grace, but should be attended to with caution.

We are getting dangerously close to legalism when we begin to list steps for a life of faith. While it is true that the Apostle Paul clearly laid down “the how” of day to day living, he only did so after clearly establishing the foundational truths of identity. For instance, his letters to the church at Corinth are filled with instruction about how to live, but the very first words he wrote pointed to the identity they already knew. (See 1 Corinthians 1:2-9) Only on that foundation were the practical applications for life made.

Even when the steps aren’t intended to be taken in a legalistic way, people interpret information through their own unique paradigm. If their grid is one of legalism, great momentum works against a clear understanding. We know we are being pulled away from grace by the undertow of legalism when we become more engulfed in “ought to” than “want to.” Law scolds people into submission, but offers no strength by which they can respond. Grace always encourages and energizes us to live the life to which God has called us.

Abiding in Christ isn’t achieved by successfully following certain steps. It is an act of faith by which we simply choose to believe that He is our life, that He will express Himself through us, and then acting as if He is doing that very thing at this very moment. Abundant living isn’t found in a plan, but is found in the Person of Jesus Christ. That fact can’t be overstated or emphasized enough times.

The Danger of Drifting

My wife, Melanie, and I love to sail. Years ago we took classes and were certified to skipper a sailboat. One of the things we learned was to determine our course using a protractor and a chart. One important thing about sailing is that if you plan to go a long way, you’d better be sure you aren’t off course a few degrees when you begin. If you are, you’re going to end up in big trouble later. A few degrees off course in the beginning doesn’t look too serious, but the problem is that, the longer you sail, the further you move away from your intended destination.

It doesn't seem to make a big difference if you’re off course a little when you start, but as you move along your journey, you get further and further away from where you wanted to go. The same is true in our grace walk. When our eyes were opened to the gospel and we began to follow Christ, that wasn’t the finish line, but was the starting point of our journey.

Paul begins all his epistles with the word "grace" because that is where we have to start if we want to end up where our hearts long to be and where our Father has determined to be our destination. If you start your Christian life at the point of grace and you move forward, charting your course by grace, you will move further and further into the waters of abundant living.

If, on the other hand, you start from a place of grace, but you begin to drift toward legalism, you will most certainly end up in a place of frustration and defeat in your life. Many have started well, but drifted away from a grace walk and have found themselves in the troubled waters of legalism.

I actually got lost at sea once because I got off course. We were in the British Virgin Islands and my plan was to go around the tip of Virgin Gorda from one side of the island and stop at a beautiful bay on the other side. It didn't work out that way and for hours and hours we saw no land at all. When I finally spotted land again, I couldn’t figure out where I was because I had completely lost my bearings. Eventually, I made contact with a cruise ship whose captain sent the Coast Guard to rescue us.

I started well, but drifted off course. The same thing has happened to many who follow Jesus. A man at the conference where I spoke this past weekend said to me, "I didn't have to be taught grace when I first trusted Christ. That's how I naturally lived. I had to be taught legalism. Then the things I had done in the beginning because I wanted to became things I should do and that's when it all unraveled."

He's right. It made me think of Paul's words to the Galatians when he said, "You started out well. How has hindered you?" Staying on course with grace must be intentional because the current of religion always pushes against grace. Let us set our course by the love and grace of the Father and be careful not to drift away from Him into a religious lifestyle.

It can't be stated any better than the writer of Hebrews said it: "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away" (Hebrews 2:1).

Did Jesus Come To Change God's Mind About Us or Our Minds about God??

Since Adam sinned in The Garden, man has had a distorted understanding of who our Father is, thinking Him to be a harsh Judge instead of a loving Father. But sin didn't change God. It changed man. Jesus came to set the record straight and help us get our minds right about the Father. He didn't come to change what God the Father thinks about us, but came to change what we think about Him.

Hebrews 1:3 says, "The Son is the radiance of God's glory. The word "radiance" is the Greek word apaugasma and literally means "out-raying" as in the way the rays of the sun shine out from its surface. The word "glory" is the Greek word doxa and means "opinion." (For example, when we sing "The Doxology," we are singing a word (Logos) about our opinion (doxa) of God.)

So the Bible tells us that Jesus is the out-raying of God's opinion. Opinion about what or whom? About us and what He thinks of us! Jesus came to be the exact expression of the Father's opinion of you. Everything we claim to know about God our Father needs to be Christological - centered in Christ Jesus and what He has revealed to us about the Father.

Don't let anything other than Jesus Himself be your source for understanding who the Father is. "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world" (Hebrews 1:1-2).

Jesus came to show us the Father and what He has shown us perfectly and clearly is that our Father is Love. That's it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Every other doctrine or viewpoint we may develop must be grounded in that reality. Whether it's His justice or His mercy, His wrath or His patience, His strong sovereignty or His still small voice . . . you name it. It all must be understood in the light of the fact that He is Love or we will inadvertently stray away from a biblical theology into the smog of a human wisdom polluted by religion.

How Important Is Persistence In Praying About A Matter?

I used to believe that it increased the likelihood of having my prayers answered if I prayed constantly about the thing that concerned me. I thought the longer I stayed on my knees about it the better off the outcome would be. I don't believe that anymore. God doesn't need me to convince Him to act on my behalf. Jesus once told a story that illustrates the heart of the Father toward us:

Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, saying, “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me legal protection from my opponent.’ For a while he was unwilling, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her legal protection, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge said; now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly (Luke 18:1-8).

Isn’t Jesus telling us all that we need to keep praying and praying and praying without giving up on the Father answering our prayer? I think this view misses the point. Jesus is using an unrighteous man as His example in this story. Jesus stresses twice that this judge “did not fear God nor respect man.” He wasn’t a loving, caring man at all. He was indifferent to the needs of the supplicant and had to be worn down by persistent begging.

The truth Jesus wants us to see is that we are not to think of God that way! In this story Jesus was doing what He did so many other times, and that is to make an argument through contrast. We are missing the point if we think God is like that judge, unconcerned with people’s needs and only responding if we badger Him into it. No, Jesus’ point is, “If even an unrighteous, uncaring judge can be persuaded to act for you, how much more will the perfectly loving and good God respond to our heartfelt cries!” He isn’t telling us that we have to pray tremendous lengths of time to persuade our Father. What He is saying is that anytime and every time you pray, you can have confidence that He hears and will answer. All the time you can pray knowing that He loves you and isn’t holding out on you until you prove your sincerity by time and effort in prayer. God isn’t a Judge who needs to be persuaded. He is a Father is eager to answer you and to show you His love!

We reverse it in our minds sometimes, and believe that God doesn’t care. We think, “If we can just get enough people praying, and can log enough time in prayer, then maybe we can cause God to do something He really isn’t interested in doing. If He’s not now on our side, maybe we can win Him over through sheer effort and persistence.”

But the truth of grace is just the opposite. We don’t have to persuade a reluctant, unconcerned God. It’s the other way around. God is the seeker. He is the primary lover. God is always the initiator, so in reality the way it works is this: When the Lord gets ready to do something, He often moves the hearts of His people to pray. He moves us to pray, and we might be moved to invite others to join us in prayer. Then they can share in the process and become a part of the answer as well. When we become involved in prayer, God allows us to participate in what He’s doing in this world.

Back to the story Jesus told of the unrighteous judge: It’s important to note that in the story he told, Jesus had the supplicant appealing to a judge for help. He wanted us to see that our Father isn’t like the person depicted in this story. The judge was reluctant to answer, but our Father isn’t.

How we view God has everything to do with what expectations (faith) we have when we come to Him in prayer. I’ve already said that Jesus was using contrast to show the difference between our situation when we ask God for something and the situation of the widow in His story. There can be a difference in our expectation and approach when we come to Him because of the difference in the identities of the one the widow was beseeching and the One we are asking for help.

She was talking to a Judge. You aren’t. You are talking to your Father. That difference cannot be overstated. God isn’t a Judge who is sitting in heaven with a judicial mindset toward you that causes you to have to appeal to Him as you would ask a human judge to show you mercy and to grant your petition to the court.

Our God’s relationship to you isn’t judicial. It is relational. He is your Father and He delights in responding to our heartfelt requests. You can approach Him with the full knowledge that He doesn’t have to be persuaded to act in your best interest. His role in your life is based on His loving character. That fact gives you reason to know that you don’t have to beg Him. You don’t have to get enough people to convince Him the way somebody might show up in court with a petition signed by a multitude of people to convince the judge to rule in their behalf. Your Father is already on your side and is eager to bless you in every way. The story of the widow and the judge doesn't teach the lesson many of us have been told. In fact, it teaches just the opposite.

Radically Better Conference in Atlanta

Thanks to Paul for putting this together, to Joel for recording it and to those who contributed by being recorded. It was really good for us all to be together!

Interview "Grace on Trial"

http://www.ptm.org/av/audio/Interviews/Steve%20McVey%20Intv.wma

Check out this interview I recently did with my friend, Greg Albrecht, of Plain Truth Ministries. The theme is "Grace On Trial." Greg's a great grace guy who I really respect a lot.

Radio Interview

Here's a radio interview I did this week with Neil Boron on WDCX in Buffalo, New York.

When You're Afraid About A Decision You Have To Make

“Please pray for us that we will know the right decision to make,” Larry asked the small group who met in his home. “We believe that taking the job I’ve been offered in Dallas is the right thing, but we want to make doubly sure we aren’t missing God’s will. You know how deceptive the devil can be. I don’t want to be misled by him. The way he deceives us sometimes is so insidious. I don’t want to be fooled. We know he is cunning and we really want to hear from God on this situation.”

As Larry talked, it began to sound like this time had been set aside to honor Satan himself. More was said about the devil’s ability to mislead us than was said about anything else. Of course, there is no doubt that Larry’s sincere desire was to know and do God’s will, but listening to the way he talked, you’d think that the ability of the enemy to deceive us is greater than God’s ability to keep us in His will.

Larry isn’t different from many Christians today who live a life filled with fear that they’re going to do the wrong thing. They tip toe through this world like a scared little girl in a haunted house. I meet them all the time. They say, “Steve, pray for me. Pray that I won’t miss the will of God.” Or, “Satan is so powerful and so deceptive. Pray for me. I don’t want to miss the will of God.” Or, “I want to stay in the center of God’s perfect will. I can be deceived and can make a mess of my life if I go out there apart from God’s will.” They go on and on about the ability of the enemy to deceive them. They’re so scared that they’re going to miss God’s will, that when they do make decisions, they’re always timid and tentative and unsure.

When it comes to making decisions regarding God’s will, many seem to abandon faith altogether. Instead, they express great fear that they’re going to miss it. Their fear so handicaps them, that they sometimes do practically nothing of any real spiritual significance. They’d rather do nothing than take the risk of making a mistake.

Don’t be paralyzed by analysis paralysis. Don’t come to the place of no further progress in your grace walk because of your fear you might make a wrong choice. Do you want to know and do God’s will? Then trust Jesus Christ. Appropriate Jesus Christ as your life, and then … decide! And move forward in faith — not in apprehension and fear, but in faith — saying, “Lord God, thank you that you are my life, and I will trust you to live through me.”

Make your decisions on faith, not fear, and rush into them with confidence that Jesus will enable you to

A Legalist's Guide To Worship: Basic Mechanics 101

When The Lights Go Out

When my four children were small, occasionally the electricity would go off in our home at night. If they were still awake, I would hear a unified chorus cry out, “Daddy!” Melanie and I would walk through the dark rooms and collect them one by one and bring them back to our bed, where we would lie down with them. With all six of us in one bed, we would put our arms around the children and assure them that we were with them. Without fail, in a short time they would all fall asleep, secure in the fact that we were there, holding them in the dark.

Your Heavenly Father is always there for you when the lights go out in life. He has you in His arms. He is with you when you are in the dark. When you are afraid, you can feel His love and know that He cares for you. (See 1 Peter 5:7) You may be assured that, although it might be pitch black around you, the sun will shine again. Until then, just rest in Abba’s arms, knowing that He will never let you go.

When you standing in the middle of troubling and confusing circumstances, choose to continuously think about the reality of the love of Christ for you. Through the eyes of faith, envision Jesus wrapping His arms around you. He hugs you and softly whispers to you, “It’s okay. I’m here. I love you and promise you that everything is going to be okay. Just stay here in my arms. I’ll take care of you.” Nothing in life provides a greater sense of peace in the face of personal sorrow than knowing that we are being held in a never-ending heavenly hug. In his arms, we find a “peace that passes understanding.”

Do you believe that your Father is for you and that He will deliver you through your trials safely to the other side of the circumstance? When you embrace the truth that He does deeply love you, in spite of any painful things that may come into your life, you will find yourself moving further along the road toward deeper intimacy. If you doubt your Father’s love because of painful events you have experienced, renew your mind with verses from the Bible that assure you of His great love. For instance, the Apostle Paul wrote:

For I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor …… shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 8:38-40).

Look at that passage again and note the things listed that have threatened your awareness of the love of God. Knowing His love is the only thing that will sustain you through the crisis of life.

In a hymn he wrote in 1876, George Robinson said:

Things that once were wild alarms cannot now disturb my rest;
Closed in everlasting arms, pillowed on the loving breast.
O to lie forever here, doubt and care and self resign,
While He whispers in my ear, I am His, and He is mine.
While He whispers in my ear, I am His and He is mine.

Don't beat yourself up if you aren't moving through your personal crisis in the best possible way. Many great Christians have gone through trials without keeping their head held high and their feelings staying strong all the way.

Look at what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:8-9 about how he went through the trials he faced when he was in Macedonia:

"We don't want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn't think we were going to make it. We felt like we'd been sent to death row, that it was all over for us." (The Message)

Does it sound like he was sailing through his troubles with a conscious and constant sense of victory? We always have victory but we don't always feel that way.

If you had been able to talk to the Apostle Paul, what would you have told him? Would your advice have been for him to give up faith? To shame him for thinking and feeling like he did? I suspect that your answer to him would have been to show him grace, to encourage him by reminding him that it would all be okay in the end. You wouldn't put him down for having normal human emotions in the circumstances he had to face.

Now, here is a big step that you can take to help yourself. Treat yourself the same way. That's right -- show yourself the same grace you would show to somebody else. It's amazing how gracious we can be with other people when they go through hard times and express negative thoughts or feelings. Then we turn right around and don't cut ourselves one ounce of slack when we are in similar situations. Don't do that to yourself.

Your Father is a gracious God to all His children. It's okay if you don't handle your situation perfectly at every instant. Look to Him and give yourself grace when you don't move through your situation with exact perfection.

(This article is an excerpt from my book, Journey Into Intimacy. For more information on the book, click here: http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=525

Holiness, It's What I Long For! (Well, don't do that.)

I inwardly grimaced when the worship leader led us all to sing:

Holiness, holiness is what I long for
Holiness is what I need
Holiness, holiness is what
You want for me, for me.

What's my problem with that chorus? It's because it asks for something we already have! We don't need holiness. We have it right now! The reason so many people squeeze their eyes closed and sing like they're begging God for holiness is because they think they aren't holy based on how they've acted, felt and thought lately. But it's not about that at all.

If you think holiness has to do with moral perfection, I encourage you to take a look at the New Testament Church in Corinth. To say that these people misbehaved is an understatement. Inside that church there existed divisions, drunkenness, jealousy, immorality and many others sinful behaviors.

The Apostle Paul wrote the Corinthian Christians a letter and here is how he began it: “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling …” (1 Corinthians 1:2). Paul said the Corinthians were “sanctified in Christ Jesus.” He knew about their behavior and even addressed it later in his letter, but Paul knew something that many believers today don’t understand. Our behavior does not determine who we are! These Corinthians were saints, regardless of their behavior. They were saints, even if they were “saints behaving badly.” Their holiness didn’t have a thing to do with what they did or didn’t do.

Paul reminded them a little later, “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). He says that it was God’s doing that they were in Christ, and that Christ is their sanctification, or holiness. Again we see that the Corinthians were already holy in God’s sight.

Paul made very clear how we have become holy. God did it through Christ. As the writer of Hebrews put it: “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).

It is by Christ’s work that we have been made holy. What about places in the Bible where the Scripture seems to teach that we are to seek holiness? Consider, for example, Hebrews 12:14: “Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” What does the verse mean when it tells us to “pursue” sanctification (holiness)? The answer has to do with what we mean by pursuing it.

If you define “pursuing sanctification” as getting better and better at keeping rules, you will find yourself right back in legalism, but we have already seen that rules-keeping is not the meaning of holiness.

To pursue it means that we act diligently to agree with God concerning what He has said about us and we act like it’s true – because it is true! You have Jesus Christ and He is your holiness. So we are pursuing sanctification or holiness when we are living out of the reality of His indwelling life. We grow in the expression of holiness in our thoughts and attitudes and even in our actions, but we don’t become more and more holy. You are holy. That is what you are!

Dealing With Sins In Our Lives

Based on the widespread popularity of the topic in books in Christian bookstores and the constant focus in sermons and Bible studies within the church world, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that the most important subject among believers is sin. Sin management often seems to be the reason for public ministry and to be the most important goal many who follow Jesus have embraced for their lives.

Overcoming sinful actions in life consumes the thoughts and energy of many sincere Christians. They are completely dedicated to stopping the wrong things they do and replacing those actions with actions that glorify God. While their motives are certainly pure, their goal and focus is completely misguided.

We are not called upon in Scripture to direct our attention toward our sins and exert our energy on eliminating them. In fact, to take this approach not only won’t reduce sinful actions; it will increase wrong behavior in our lifestyles. The truth of the matter is that the Bible teaches we aren’t to focus on sins at all, but to focus our undivided attention on Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul dealt with the subject of our focus by warning the churches he established in grace not to make sins their focus, but instead to look to Christ. To the Colossian church, he wrote, “Set your mind on the things that are above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2). He warned the Roman church: “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).

To try to overcome sin by focusing on it has the exact opposite effect that we want in our lives. If we are fixated on what we do wrong and trying to figure out how to conquer the bad behavior, we will always come to some sort of plan that involves our own willpower and determination. When that happens, it doesn’t matter how sincere we might be, we are setting ourselves up to fail. Taking an approach that contradicts what the Bible says about our sins won’t work despite the fact that we are sincere and even ask for God’s help. He will not help us with our method, but will instead let us fail until we come to the place where we are willing to learn and accept His answer concerning our sinful actions.

Any approach we take in overcoming our own sins through self-discipline is legalistic because it stirs up within us the false hope that there is something we can do to defeat it. The reality is that we don’t have to conquer our sins because Jesus Christ already has defeated sin. When we try to do what He has already accomplished we are then denying the sufficiency of His grace in the matter and are attempting to utilize a legalistic method to do it ourselves. Legalistic methods doom us to failure. Paul wrote that, “sinful passions are aroused by the law” (Romans 7:5). He warned the Corinthians who were trapped in sinful behavior that, “the strength of sin is the Law” (1 Corinthians 15:56).

Legalistic attempts to overcome sins by self imposed rules and self-determination are to sins what gasoline is to a flame. It won’t stop it but will make matters worse. The only way to enjoy victory over sin is to rest in the victory that is already ours because of Christ’s finished work. He defeated sin once and for all. Transformation comes to our lifestyle when we simply believe that reality and stop trying to do something that He has already done. We simply rest in His victory and direct our attention to Him. When we do that, the sins that have wielded power over us fall aside into impotency.