Is it okay to rejoice in what I do?

January 12, 2008

A T-shirt for children says, “God created me and God doesn’t make junk,” yet many adults seem to need these words. I’ve heard people bemoan their inadequacies to the point that they cannot see anything else around them, never mind anything positive in themselves.

But does the gospel allow us to see good in ourselves? The Bible declares “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10) “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (verse 23). Because of verses like these, some adopt what has been called a “worm theology” that gives no merit at all to any human being. In the sight of God, we have all gone astray; everyone has turned to his own way. We are totally worthless and therefore have no right to see any good in ourselves or anyone else.

Yet we are created in the image of God. Although that image is marred and distorted by sin and selfishness, people have the capacity to be creative, care for one another, and do good things. Because of these things, the declaration that “everyone is sinful” confuses many people, and even makes them angry.

Sometimes I draw a diagram to explain how I understand the difference between good and godly. I use a long horizontal line with words inserted. It looks something like this:

Evil <-----------> good † godly <-----------> totally like Jesus

Every person is born on the left side of the center symbol (my best effort to draw a cross in this font). While each person has capacity for “good” as defined in human terms, we also have the capacity for evil. Most people do not go all the way to the left into total evil, but no one can go farther to the right than being a “good” person—unless they go through the Cross and respond to the gospel.

The gospel takes care of the sin issue, and it is sin that keeps a person from being godly or Godlike. Because of sin that Godlikeness is covered up or perverted. When sin is forgiven and cleansed through faith in Jesus Christ and His saving work at Calvary, a person can move from the left side to the right. In the beginning, and at various times in life, that person may not look much like Jesus, but he or she does have the capacity because sin is covered and Christ now lives in their heart.

All that said, I used to put people into black or white categories. If they didn’t know Christ, they were bad people; if they did, they were saints. While this is how God looks at us, I’ve realized that I cannot see as He does, partly because the lines are not as clear to me as I once supposed. I don’t always know who is who, or who believes what. Also, I’ve learned that although an unbelieving person cannot be godly, goodness in a Christian can be self-effort, or what the Bible calls living according to the flesh. Another term is self-righteousness. This is just as “black” in outward appearance as the sin of unbelief, maybe even more so. Because God looks on the heart, He knows what is going on, but I don’t.

Anyway, as I read and study and think about the sufficiency of God, I realize how difficult it is to think about Him and His power throughout the day. It is easier to focus on my will, my abilities, my resources. Yet is that bad? It was sinful before I became a believer, but now that I know Jesus, have the lines changed? Can I rejoice in my new life and the things I do?

I question this because I listen to Christians who cannot rejoice in much of anything. They dismiss their godly deeds as if it is somehow sinful to acknowledge that God has used them to do something in a Christlike way. This contradicts what happens in my own heart when I do something creative or Christlike. If I share my joy, I often get odd looks as if I’m doing the wrong thing.

For example, last night I stayed up past midnight designing quilts on my computer. I’ve never had the luxury of that amount of time so each revision became more creative and pleasing to my eye than the previous one. It felt good. I wondered if a similar elation ran though the heart of God when He flung the stars into space or created thousands of variations of a tree. Surely it did, and even more so. The Bible says when He was finished His creative work, He declared it “good.”

Am I not like Him? Ephesians 2:8-10 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

God gives me good things to do, but it’s difficult keeping a balance in how I feel about my performance. I can fix my eyes so exclusively on myself that all my thoughts are directed toward my own condition—Is my love for God warm enough? Am I enough in earnest? Are my feelings toward Him what they ought to be? Have I enough zeal?—or I begin to gloat over my accomplishments as if I did it all by myself. The happy alternative is rejoicing in being His workmanship and delighting in those good works that because of Christ Jesus I now have the capacity to do.

So then, what is the difference between the feel-good of an artist who does not know Jesus and the joy of a Christian over their creative works? Before Christ came into my life, I was satisfied for such a short while. Very soon after completion, I began to feel as if the work I did, creative or otherwise, was not good enough, certainly never as good as the next person, and never totally satisfying.

Not so in Christ. When I make something or do something as His child and in obedience to His leading, I can hear the Holy Spirit saying “Well done!” He fills me with His joy, a joy that does not depend on the quality of the work, but on my relationship to Him and on simply doing as He asks.

God’s saving grace is sufficient. It even includes the grace to be thrilled at the work He gives me and the completion of each task. I can stand on the right side of that diagram and rejoice at form, pattern, color, line and design, because He lives in me. These things please Him and I can feel His pleasure.

I’m no longer driven to do the perfect painting, create the perfect design, make the perfect quilt because He alone is perfect, and what He has done in my heart is more than enough!