A subtle desire for glory

Months ago, I presented an idea for ministry to our church leadership. They were all for it. However, I’ve been wondering if the idea was God’s or mine. Others think it is a great idea, but participation isn’t happening. I suspect I’ve goofed up somewhere, and asked the Lord to show me.

One answer came from today’s reading in My Utmost for His Highest. It is about ‘who gets the glory’ and even though I know this truth, knowing it is not the same as putting it into practice. Chambers uses this verse as his basis for what he says:

“The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.” (John 3:29)

Jesus is the groom and His friend who stands near and hears Him is like any best man, he is not there to grandstand, but to rejoice in the Groom and hearing His voice. Everything he does is about Jesus.

I’m not always doing that. Chambers says my goodness is not to attract attention to me, but be a magnet to draw others to Jesus. Otherwise, I can be a hindrance because people will glorify me instead of Him. The hard part is liking that attention.

Chambers goes on to say that obedience is occasional while abiding in Christ is a constant. If I’m not called to “do” any good things, I am still called to “be” in right relationship to my Savior. The ‘being’ part forms the greater portion of life. If my ‘being’ is intent on maintaining a close relationship and loyalty to the Lord, then when called upon to act, that focus will come to the forefront. If my ‘being’ is intent on fitting in, doing a great work, being a good prayer warrior, or any other thing, no matter how good that is, then that will be the focus, not Jesus.

I get it. I know it. I’m not there yet.

God shows me how my regular devotional reading is related to what Chambers says. It points out that ‘doing good’ is about the ‘rules’ of Christian life, and in trying to be a good Christian and do good things, my focus too easily slides to that instead of to glorifying Jesus Christ. He is “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:4)

Romans 7:1-13 speaks of the need to be dead to the law so that I can bear fruit for God. It adds, “For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”

This passage points out that the law is not sin, but it serves to show that whatever we do in an attempt to obey it, we fall short. “Sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.”

What then is the point? From this passage and from others, I realize that trying to do ‘all the right things’ is futile because my efforts are my efforts. If this ministry idea is from God (and I’m not sure about that either), then He will work out the kinks and give me whatever I need to do my part. If not, then no amount of human effort will make it work.

^^^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, my efforts at self-glory are subtle, but they show up and, at best, are fruitless. My idea sounds good but its roots are in the wrong place. Instead of grace making it happen, I’ve been relying on my efforts. I’m aware that ‘relying on grace’ can also be a subtle selfish effort to get You to bless this plan. Instead, You have said that I am dead to sin and alive to God. Please turn my focus on the amazing goodness of You and teach me what I need to be so that You receive all glory. 

God’s love is different than mine

God tells me to love Him and love others, yet love can be difficult to define. A liberal might think it means to tolerate, even encourage others to do their own thing. Ultra-conservatives would call that antinomianism, the idea that grace frees people from moral laws. They might swing to other way to a legalistic view that loving God means obeying every command to the letter of the law.

The answer is not somewhere in the middle. Love is defined in the gospel, not the law. The law shows me my sin by pointing to a perfect righteousness that I cannot perform. Instead, Jesus Christ lived a sinless life which God imputed to me in redemption. That means that in Christ, God made me perfectly righteous. He applied the blood of Christ to my heart and set me completely free from the law.

To do that, He died for me. My death could not satisfy the infinite justice of law without being an eternal death under God’s wrath against sin, but Christ died as my Substitute and satisfied the justice of God. As far as God’s law is concerned, I am dead and it has no claim upon me. I died in Christ and now live under no condemnation.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1–4) “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:4)

As today’s devotional reading says, it is as foolish to try to obey the law for myself as it would be for me to try to atone for my own sins.

God still tells me to love Him and love others. However, it is folly to try to love others apart from the Spirit of God and the life of Jesus Christ that is in me. He is the One who loves God perfectly and loves others perfectly. I cannot do it apart from Him.

However, I can see how to love by looking at Jesus Christ. He is my example. One way, and there are many, is like this . . .

. . . Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him . . . . When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you . . . . If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” (John 13:1–17)

Jesus then said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

This love is not just a feeling toward others, nor is it merely the action of doing good to them. It is an issue from the heart of Jesus Christ, a love that is beyond how I feel or what I can do. It willingly serves the needs of even enemies (Judas was there), not to impress or to manipulate, but because love lives in me and if I am to be like Jesus, I must release it in whatever expression God puts on my heart.

Jesus, these days some think love is a do-good, feel-good emotion, but Your love goes far beyond that. It led You to a bloody and horrifying death because You put the needs of others above Your very life. Because of You, I understand much more about love and the power of love. Loving others is more than courtesy, more than hugs or generosity or any sentiment; love is yielding my entire being to You so that You can express Your love for humanity through me. Love is being Your servant who will say, “Not my will but thine be done” and then follow through with action.