Why Pleasing God Exhausts Me! (55 seconds)

If I make my primary motive to please God (versus trusting God - which pleases Him), I quickly find myself on a treadmill that I cannot get off. I find myself thinking, "what must I do to keep God pleased with me...How do I know when I have done enough...am I giving God my best?...better try harder - after all God's standard is holiness." Whenever I make the underlying motive of my life to please God, I am trapped in a life of self-effort. Not only can I not get off the treadmill, I am chained to it. Day and night I try to be good enough so God is pleased. I am trapped and I am living without the good news of the Gospel.

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that "without faith it is impossible to please God." If the underlying motive of my life is to trust God, He is pleased with me!

God has already done a miraculous work in us. We have a new nature. I don't have to, by my relentless hard work and effort, try to become somebody different than who I am so that God will be pleased. But now, by a spirit-empowered effort, I can live out of what He has already done in me and who He has made me to be. The foundation of that effort is trusting that what He has said He has done in me is true. That trust pleases Him.

If Fear is Replaced, What About Philippians 2:12-13? (50 seconds)

One of our blog followers asked a great question...and a common question. If our fear of God that is rooted in His punishment of us is eliminated (because He will no longer punish us) and replaced with boldness and confidence - what does Paul mean in Philippians 2:12 when he says "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling?"

First, the "work out" is an admonition to live out what God has already done in us. He has given us a new heart, a new nature, so live that out. Among commentators there seems to be no disagreement here.

I believe that the "fear and trembling" is not a fear of God, but a fear of ourselves...we still have our flesh and as Paul says in Romans 8:7 and 8, it is hostile to God, it cannot submit to God and it cannot please God. Kenneth Wuest in his Word Studies from the Greek New Testament expresses it this way, "This fear is a self distrust...it is vigilance against temptation...it is taking heed lest we fall...it is the caution which timidly shrinks from whatever would offend and dishonor God and the Saviour." As Wuest does, I connect this verse to Paul's advice in I Cor 10:12 "...let anyone who thinks that he stand take heed lest he fall."

My Identity is the Source of my Behavior...and my Effort!

Ephesians 5:8 "...at one time you were darkness, but now you are light...walk as children of light..."

"At one time you were...now you are..." We are not who we used to be! In Christ we actually are someone different. Paul in this passage doesn't just say we are now living in the light, but we are light. He then says that this light has a DNA of goodness, of rightness, and of truth ("for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true"). Because we are a new creation in Christ, we now have this new DNA implanted in us. Then Paul says we are to "walk" or to live consistantly with who we are. We do not behave so that we can become someone with the DNA of light, but because we have the DNA of light, we are to live that way..."walk as children of light." Live like who you are.

Note again that our behavior is not the cause of our identity...rather our identity is the source of our behavior.

The other day we talked about how grace is never opposed to effort...and here it is again. To "walk as children of light" takes effort. A three mile walk takes more effort than a three hour nap. And so we do exert effort...lots of effort...but it is effort focused on living out of our new identity, not effort focused on trying to eventually become someone different from the scum we currently are. Could it be that my obedience is the evidence of what God has already done in me?

Is God a Pirate That Can Never be Pleased?

This past week I had the priviledge of spending time with my friend John Lynch. John is one of the best teachers I know on the topic of grace. In this short 3 minute video clip he talks about the futility of trying to do in the flesh what only God can do by his Spirit in me.

Is Grace Opposed to Effort?

NO! Grace is not opposed to effort...it is opposed to earning! But a word of caution, as believers trapped in the prison of performance, we can have a lot of misdirected effort that does us no good. Effort that keeps us immature. More on that later. For now - remember, nothing we do ever makes God our debtor.