A little tipsy?

The older I get the more I have to work on balance. Standing on one leg might look silly, but it could keep me from ending up with my end up, which would look even sillier.

Spiritual balance is even more imperative. The Christian life is full of opposites and paradoxes. On one hand we know we are saved by faith, not works, but the Bible also tells us we will be judged by our works. How can that fit together? God is loving yet will pour out wrath on unregenerate sinners. He is sovereign and hates sin, yet sin seems to prevail over much of the world. Why doesn’t He do something?

I’ve heard faith described as holding seemingly opposing truths, one in each hand, and being able to live with the tension. Faith is rather like a teeter-totter that must be balanced. If I lean toward one doctrine, another might fly in the air.

For example, today I read Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15: "But the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”

Still stinging a bit from yesterday’s thoughts, I noticed that phrase again, “His grace toward me was not in vain” and thought about the life of Paul and how he single-heartedly served God with all his mind and strength. I felt convicted. I’ve not achieved anything for God like that man did and wondered if I was guilty of receiving grace in vain. I teetered.

Then I thought of Ephesians 2:10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” and I tottered.

God planned my work before I became a Christian. He had what He wants me to do all figured out. Then He saved me by grace, put me in His family, and began to create the poem (yes, “workmanship” = poema in Greek) that He had in mind. I will be the expression of Himself that He wants me to be. I’m not a Paul-poem or a Billy Graham-poem, but exactly the workmanship that He intends—for me.

At the same time, if He gives me a job to do (even the mundane, like washing dishes and hoeing weeds, can be from Him), I am to do it in the Spirit of Christ, not in the power of the flesh, and certainly not in a whining, grumbling, ‘I-wish-I-were-more-like-Paul’ frame of mind.

Balance. Instead of sliding off one end in despair at not being or doing enough, or sliding off the other end with vain ambition and frantic self-effort, He tucks two truths into my hands and reminds me that standing on one or the other is not only silly, but hazardous to my spiritual health. In this case, balance means standing firmly on both—and trusting Him to keep me from tipping over.