When God tells his children that “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own
doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast,”[1] it
includes the denial of every kind of boasting.
We might be most familiar with the confident and arrogant
boasting of those who truly believe they are better than others because of
their ability to perform at a higher standard of accomplishment.
However, there is another kind of boasting that is very
common in the church, and all the more insipid in its poisonous influence for
not looking like boasting at all.
I speak of the victim’s boast, or the boasting in
victimization.
The victim’s boast is the cry that, “I can’t do it because
of…” and out comes a story of trauma that is not the appeal of a wounded soul
that wants healing in Jesus Christ, but that of a victim who wants their
neglect of God’s will to have a stamp of justification. It is all the better if
the world gives it some kind of label that encompasses whatever symptoms are
evident, and lends a sense of justification for why people continue to remain
as they are, unchanged, untransformed, untouched by the realities of the
Spirit-filled life in Jesus Christ.
When the apostle Paul reminds the church that it is “by grace you have been saved through faith,”
and then clarifies that there is no grounds for boasting in our salvation
because it is a gift of grace, uninfluenced by works of any kind, it is to turn
us to rest in this wonderful truth.
On one side, it is a declaration of the absolute purity of
our salvation, that it is not contaminated by any works of our own, therefore it
is so purely the work of God that it cannot fail to do what God has graciously
set out to do. You know, the way “that he
who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus
Christ.”[2]
However, on the other hand, because the fullness of our
salvation is completely in the hands of God’s grace, and there are no works
required from us to complete what God has begun in his children, there is no
room for anyone in the church to deny the complete transformation of our souls “being transformed into the same image from
one degree of glory to another.”[3]
For us to experience the fullness of God’s gracious gift of
salvation, we do not need to work at it ourselves, but experience it through
faith. When we tell God we cannot experience something his word promises to his
born again children, we are not speaking the truth about what his grace is able
to accomplish in our lives, but simply exposing the same “O you of little faith” that Jesus kept confronting in his
disciples.[4]
It is time for the church to address (in just as loving ways
as Jesus) that we have many among us who have such little faith that they
experience little of what God is doing among us. Our problem is not with the
ability of God’s grace to operate, but the freedom of our faith to believe him.
To clarify, every time God reveals something in his word that
is a promise of God for our salvation, something that, if we received it by
faith it would give glory to our Father who is in heaven, and we deny God’s
ability to do that in our life because we have some (fill-in-the-blanks)
kind of problem that gives us an excuse for why we cannot be expected to
experience such a work of grace, we are sneaking in a works-based counterfeit
through the back door, and boasting that it is ours.
After all, we easily recognize when someone speaks of
salvation as a work they did, or speaks of faith as a good work they are doing
to add to God’s work of grace. We recognize why Paul had to confront the
Galatians with the grievous way they had turned to a different gospel that
included adherence to the law (good works). We feel Paul’s heartache as the
Corinthians turned from their “sincere
and pure devotion to Christ”[5]
because the super-apostles were convincing them to add the law to the gospel.
However, while exposing the dangers of a works-based false
gospel is as necessary today as it was in Paul’s day, we must also recognize
the equally dangerous false teaching that God’s children can be so traumatized
by painful experiences that they cannot experience the purity of God’s grace
accomplishing the whole will of God in their lives simply through faith, not of
any works required of ourselves.
Now, the grace of God clearly includes God’s children coming
to him with the prayer of, “I believe;
help my unbelief!”[6]
However, it does not give room for us to come to God in explicit denial of his
gifts of salvation because we are too wounded, or traumatized, or (fill in
the blank), to experience something God promises to do in us by grace,
through faith.
As I share this, I am mindful that there will be some people
so genuinely wounded by life experiences that they truly believe they are worthless
bits of garbage with no hope of that ever changing. I am in no way denying that
children of God can believe and feel such things.
Rather, I am speaking to the whole body of Christ and calling
us to accept that the gift of our salvation, purely by the grace of God,
experienced always and only through faith, is for the whole body of Christ.
There may be people in our churches that are so paralyzed with worthlessness,
and fear, and unbelief, and trauma, about the deepest issues of their souls,
that they need their four friends to have faith for them, and to tear open the
rooftops to get them down in front of Jesus.[7]
But, what we are looking for in the church is, “when Jesus saw their faith”.
I am so convinced that Jesus is building his church, and that
even the gates of hell will not prevail against it,[8]
that I know that every child of God who reads this far and still struggles with
unbelief about the deepest wounds of the soul can ask God to give them two or
three people who will pray for them in Jesus’ name, in faith, that God will
make them well.
When we combine this prayer with hearing the voice of the
Holy Spirit speaking through the words of Jesus Christ,[9]
we will find faith growing as a result of what we hear, and we will band
together to “work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to
work for his good pleasure.”[10]
Whatever God is working in us to will and to work for his
good pleasure is the expression of his grace that saves us, and us working out
our salvation with fear and trembling is the way God’s grace works through
faith.
Which brings me back to a theme verse as of late, “For everyone who has been born of God
overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our
faith.”[11]
© 2016 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
Ephesians 2:8-9
[2]
Philippians 1:6
[3]
II Corinthians 3:18
[4]
Matthew 6:30, 8:26, 14:31, 16:8, 17:20; Luke 12:28
[5]
II Corinthians 11:3
[6]
Mark 9:24
[7]
Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12
[8]
Matthew 16:18
[9]
Romans 10:17 (this includes our daily time in the word and prayer,
listening/watching sermons in church, on the internet, reading books that call
us into the promises of God for our healing, sharing in Bible study groups and
prayer meetings, any means by which we interact with one another in God’s word
and prayer so that our faith can come to life through hearing the words of our
Savior).
[10]
Philippians 2:12-13
[11]
I John 5:4
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