Last summer a missionary working in the Balkans recommended the following article. I read it, was struck by its message, re-read it and then shared it with my wife. Then I copied it and filed it away.
Yesterday I ran across it and re-read it once more. Again it challenged me. I’m not sure why it resonated with me like this. Perhaps because here in the Balkans, where I live, spiritual transformation in people’s lives usually does not occur quickly. In the hope that the article will encourage and challenge you as it did me, I share it with you:
You have to trust the Gospel to do what it promises to do… [There are] two mistakes to avoid:
- Making your own agenda the “To do” list for the Holy Spirit. That’s a big leap: from “I want it to happen” to “God wants it to happen.”
.- Turning to other motivations – like guilt, condemnation, guilt, manipulation, guilt … – to get the work done. Really. This is so important and so true.
If the Holy Spirit isn’t going to produce it by constant, earnest presentation of the Gospel to the people of God, then does it need to happen? And if the Holy Spirit isn’t the primary motivator, how can other motivations – like guilt and condemnation- actually do anything worthwhile?
I love Paul’s advice in Ephesians 6. Take up the whole armor of God…and having done all, just stand there. That’s so good. Put on God’s resources, God’s vision, God’s heart. Do all that the Gospel commands and demands. Then … stand.
We take this and do something like this: We use some of God’s resources, and things don’t go the way we want. So we start doing things our way, and finding what does work. Or we just get frustrated and start beating ourselves and other people up with guilt and condemnation for what’s not happening. They we are upset at people, ourselves and God because nothing’s working.
Scripture has a better way. Stay with the Gospel. Speak the truth in love. Design a path of radical loyalty to Christ, specific repentance and clear obedience. Does those things and do them God’s way.
Then stand.
I believe that part of the method of Paul in I Thessalonians was to do his ministry God’s way and to then look for the resulting work of the Holy Spirit and to ENCOURAGE GOD’S PEOPLE with what he saw the Spirit doing. Even when Paul is strongly correcting the church, he does so from the standpoint of the grace of God in the Gospel, never by resorting to guilt.
That’s very different from setting the agenda, living in frustration that things aren’t working, then resorting to beating up yourself and other Christians in hopes something will change.
Life is too short, folks. Grace is the good stuff. Stay with it. Don’t quit and take the road back to legalism as so many do. Preach yourself happy in God, then encourage, persuade and exhort God’s people in the grace of Jesus.
Here’s the original link.
