Choose Faith Rather Than Legalism
One of the most effective ways to destroy faith is legalism, for legalism destroys both the practice of faith and the motivation of faith. With legalism, we end up practicing rules rather than faith, and we are driven by pridefulness rather than love.
David Seamands comments, “The performance-based Christian life comes from the malignant virus of sinful pride—a pride which encourages us to build our lives upon a deadly lie. This lie claims that everything depends on what we do and on how well we perform, on our efforts and our work. We will enjoy acceptance and love if we can win them, success and status if we can earn them.” (Freedom from the Performance Trap, p. 26)
No wonder Paul begins 1 Corinthians with the admonition, “Now concerning food sacrificed to idols [one of the hot issues of legalism in the Corinthian church]: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
With legalism, our focus turns to how well we keep the rules (which puffs us up). The focus is on ME and on MY performance. With that, our focus easily turns to how much better I am at keeping the rules than you are, and/or the focus often turns to how desperately I need to hide any failures, because I need you to believe that I am keeping the rules. With legalism, we lose sight of relationship with God as we become consumed merely with the keeping of the rules.
Brennan Manning points out, “The Pharisees, who carried religion like a shield of self-justification and a sword of judgment, installed the cold demands of rule-ridden perfectionism because that approach gave them status and control, while reassuring believers that they were marching in lock-step on the road to salvation. The Pharisees falsified the image of God into an eternal small-minded bookkeeper whose favor could be won only by the scrupulous observance of laws and regulations. Religion became a tool to intimidate and enslave rather than liberate and empower.” (Abba’s Child, p. 79)
But God is a God of relationship rather than of rules, and God is a God of relationship rather than of image or pretense. As Paul writes to Corinthian Christians who have become obsessed with rules and with how good they look, Paul calls them back to a focus on their relationship with God, which is a call to them to return to God’s love. He calls us to know God’s love for us (“Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him” – 1st Corinthians 8:2-3) and to live out God’s love for others (“For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them” – 1st Corinthians 9:19).
Rules are things that we control. Where is the element of faith in that?
But love is something that controls us and is continually calling forth faith from us.
Craig Barnes shares, “We speak of faith as if it were a possession. We encourage each other to ‘have faith,’ or sometimes to ‘keep faith.’ The last thing you want to ever do is ‘lose your faith.’ This reduces faith to another tool we may use to achieve our goals in life. The Bible, however, doesn’t describe faith as if it were something we owned. It claims that it is something that owns us. Actually faith is similar to another virtue called love. We don’t say that someone has love for someone else; rather we say that one is in love. The difference is more than semantics. By claiming to be in love we admit that we are overwhelmed by a great commitment to another person. Sometimes it hits us at first sight, and at other times it develops more slowly, but at no time would we claim to be in perfect control of the love. More honestly, we admit that the love has the power to control us. Similarly faith in God is a wonderful commitment. It may come slowly or in a moment, but once it has hold of us it changes everything. Like being in love, we don’t know where the faith will lead us, what it will cost, or how it will all end. That is what creates the drama of people who live by faith. We may even struggle with our faith, or try to deny that it exists, but the Bible claims that it is pretty hard to fall out of faith.” (Hustling God: Why We Work So Hard for What God Wants to Give, p. 176)
Look to the One who Watches over Us
Psalm 121 begins with the psalmist looking for help: “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come?”
It was common for people of that day to look to the hills for help. Yet looking to the hills for help would prove to be disappointing. In his book about the Psalms of Ascent, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, Eugene Peterson remarks,
“During the time this psalm was written and sung, Palestine was overrun with popular pagan worship. Much of this religion was practiced on hilltops. Shrines were set up, groves of trees were planted, sacred prostitutes both male and female were provided; persons were lured to the shrines to engage in acts of worship that would enhance the fertility of the land, would make you feel good, would protect you from evil. There were nostrums, protections, spells and enchantments against all the perils of the road. Do you fear the sun’s heat? Go to the sun priest and pay for protection against the sun god. Are you fearful of the malign influence of moonlight? Go to the moon priestess and buy an amulet. Are you haunted by the demons that can use any pebble under your foot to trip you? Go to the shrine and learn the magic formula to ward off the mischief. From whence shall my help come? From Baal? From Asherah? From the sun priest? From the moon priestess?
“A look to the hills for help ends in disappointment. For all their majesty and beauty, for all their quiet strength and firmness, they are, finally, just hills. And for all their promises of safety against the perils of the road, for all the allurements of their priests and priestesses, they are, all, finally, lies.” (p. 36-37)
Where, then, are we to look for help? The psalmist answers, “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
Our help does not come from the hills but from the Maker of the hills.
After this, the psalm turns the tables on us. The psalm begins with us looking for help. Over the next six verses of the psalm, the focus is on God looking out for us. Five times in these six verses, the psalmist speaks of God watching over us.
The New International Version translates verses 3-8: “He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord watches over you—the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; he will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”
What is more important than us looking for help is that God is watching over us! Max Lucado puts it this way: “There is no moment when the Father’s eye is off me, or His attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters. I never go unnoticed.”
The New Revised Standard Version translates these verses with the word keep replacing the word watch: “He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.”
One day a young girl was walking in the woods with her grandfather. As is normal with a young child, the girl’s focus was frequently distracted by all the sights that surrounded her. She didn’t watch carefully for the roots and rocks and ruts in the path. Though she was holding her grandfather’s finger, she kept tripping. When she stumbled, her grip on her grandfather’s finger would slip, and she would fall to the ground, scraping her knees and her hands. The grandfather stopped, knelt down to look her in the eye, and said, “Let’s switch things around. Rather than you holding onto my finger, let me hold onto your hand. Every time you stumble, your grip on my finger slips, and you fall to the ground. But if I hold onto your hand, I will catch you and keep you from falling. My grip is stronger than yours.”
This is the promise we find in Psalm 121: God’s grip is stronger than ours. When we stumble, he will catch us every time. We can live confidently in this good news: God always holds us securely in his strong and loving grip.
Learn to Be Content Wherever You Are
A common mistake people make that robs us of joy is to say to ourselves, “I will be happy when….”
In a TED Talk, Ingrid Fetell Lee points out, “‘I’ll be happy when…’ isn’t just a phrase. It’s a mindset—and that mindset keeps us waiting for happiness instead of cultivating joy in our lives right now…. The habit of saying ‘I’ll be happy when…’ keeps us waiting for life to happen to us instead of creating a life we want right now.”
This problematic mindset of “I’ll be happy when…” is the problem the apostle Paul is addressing throughout 1st Corinthians 7. Corinthian Christians were saying to themselves, “I’ll be happy when I get married,” and “I’ll be happy when I leave my unbelieving partner,” and “I’ll be happy when I get circumcised,” and “I’ll be happy when I reverse my circumcision,” and “I’ll be happy when I break free from slavery.” But such a mindset gets in the way of people being able to find happiness in the midst of their present circumstances.
“I’ll be happy when I break free from slavery” is a fitting example of the problem. Freedom from slavery is certainly an understandable and commendable quest, but at what cost? William Barclay explains, “In the ancient world it was possible for a slave at a great effort to purchase his own freedom. This was how he did it. In the little spare time he had, he took odd jobs and earned a few coppers. His master had the right to claim commission even on these poor earnings. But the slave would deposit every farthing he could earn in the Temple of some god. When, it might be at the end of years, he had his complete purchase price laid up in the Temple, he would take his master there, the priest would hand over the money, and then symbolically the slave became the property of the god and therefore free of all men.” The slave would have gained his freedom, but at what cost, as he worked extra jobs to exhaustion then rather indebted himself to the temple and its god?
What Paul challenges us to do is to find serenity even where we are: “Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called…. In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God” (1st Corinthians 7:20 & 24).
Catherine Marshall offers a parable: “There once was a king who offered a prize to the artist who would paint the best picture of peace. Many artists tried. The king looked at all the pictures, and determined that it came down to a choice between two.
“One picture was of a calm lake, which was a perfect mirror for peaceful towering mountains all around it. Overhead was a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. All who saw this picture thought it was a perfect picture of peace.
“The other picture had mountains, too, but these were rugged and bare. Above was an angry sky, from which rain fell and in which lightning flashed. Down the side of the mountain tumbled a raging waterfall. This did not look peaceful. But when the king looked more closely, he saw behind the waterfall a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock. In the bush a mother bird had built her nest. There, in the midst of the rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest—in perfect peace.
“The king chose the second painting, explaining, “Peace does not always mean being in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means being in the midst of these things and still being calm in your heart.”
The critical matter in the Christian life is to find serenity wherever we are, and to be faithful to God in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. This is why Paul stress in 1st Corinthians 7:19, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but obeying God is everything.”
When we seek to be content wherever we are, and when we seek to be faithful to God in all situations, marvelous things may happen. A story is told about Tony Campolo when he showed up at the wrong funeral parlor: “He found only one person present when he arrived, a woman he did not know. He peered into the casket and immediately realized that he had made a mistake. The man in the casket was not the family friend. Tony was about to leave when the woman approached him, took his arm and clutched him warmly, ‘You were his friend, weren’t you?’ she said. Not wanting to appear cold and uncaring, Tony nodded and said, ‘Yes, he was a good man. Everybody loved him.’
“Since no one else arrived, he stayed for the funeral. Immediately afterwards, the elderly woman asked Tony if he would accompany her to the cemetery. He did so and as she threw a flower into the grave, so did Tony. On the way back to the funeral home, Tony decided to confess that he had misled the woman. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you,’ he began. ‘I want to be your friend, and we can’t have a friendship unless I tell you the truth. I’m afraid I have to tell you that I really didn’t know your husband. I came to the funeral by accident.’ He went on to explain the mistake he had made. When he finished, the woman squeezed his hand, smiled, and said, ‘You’ll never ever know how much your being here with me today meant.’”
When we accept wherever we happen to be, and seek to be faithful to God in every situation, amazing things may happen, and we may find some hidden joys.
Sometimes God’s Answer is Deeper Distress
Psalm 120 begins with a hope-filled declaration, “In my distress I cry to the Lord, that he may answer me.” But hope seems to fade away after that opening line.
In the next verse, the psalmist prays, “Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.” It seems that the psalmist is tired of living among people who are continually peddling falsehoods. Does God answer the psalmist’s prayer by moving the psalmist to a new neighborhood, among people of integrity? We find no evidence of that happening, for the psalm concludes, “Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war.”
This psalm offers no evidence that God does anything to change the psalmist’s circumstances. The only “answer” we find here to the psalmist’s prayer seems to be a deeper distress over the mess he lives in. But maybe that is the very answer that is needed.
The Franciscans recognize the value of such distress. They offer up this benediction:
May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.
May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
This seems to be the prayer that God answered for the psalmist. God gave the psalmist a deepening distress over the mess that surrounded him. Perhaps God wishes to do something of the same sort in our lives. Perhaps God wishes to strip up within us a disgust over the mess that surrounds us and over the mess within us so that we might long for something better and be willing to take a step in a new direction.
About this psalm, Eugene Peterson writes, “People submerged in a culture swarming with lies and malice feel like they are drowning in it; they can trust nothing they hear, depend on no one they meet. Such dissatisfaction with the world-as-it-is is preparation for traveling in the way of Christian discipleship. The dissatisfaction, coupled with a longing for peace and truth, can set us on a pilgrim path of wholeness in God.
“A person has to be thoroughly disgusted with the way things are to find the motivation to set out on the Christian way. As long as we think that the next election might eliminate crime and establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquility, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith. A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace.
“Psalm 120 is the song of such a person, sick with the lies and crippled with the hate, a person doubled up in pain over what is going on in the world. But it is not a mere outcry, it is pain that penetrates through despair and stimulates a new beginning—a journey to God which become a life of peace.” (A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p. 22)
Counsel to the Corinthians (and to us) concerning sex
Christians in Corinth had a lot of problems. The particular problem that Paul addresses in the latter half of chapter 6 and the opening portion of chapter 7 has to do with the way in which the believers in Corinth divorced their sexuality from their spirituality. They set up a dividing line between the two as though one had nothing to do with the other. But such a perspective always leads to a plethora of troubles.
The truth is that the whole of who we are was carefully, purposefully, and lovingly designed by God. This means that our physical nature—including our sexual nature—was as carefully, purposefully, and lovingly designed by God as our spiritual nature was.
I love the description presented in Genesis 2. God fashions Adam by hand, then fashions Eve from a rib from Adam’s side. When Adam wakes up, Eve is standing naked before him. Adam looks at Eve and rejoices—and the Bible presents this as a good and beautiful thing. Indeed, to make the goodness of this clear to the reader, verse 25 states, “And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.” This goes along with the declaration made in Genesis 1:31, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”
Let me take this a little further, and I will try to be as delicate as possible. When Adam saw Eve standing naked before him, and when he was naturally aroused by what he saw, God did not clap hands over God’s eyes and moan, “Oh no, what have I done?” And when Adam and Eve first brought their bodies together in intimate sexual embrace, God did not say to them, “Yuck! What are you doing?” Nor did God rebuke them, shouting, “Stop that immediately!” To join their bodies in sexual intimacy is what God designed them to do. Indeed, Proverbs 5:18-19 is nearly a command to us to enjoy sex: “Rejoice in the wife of your youth…. May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always by her love.”
God designed our sexual side as much as God designed our spiritual side. But the Corinthians split the two apart. They believed that God was spiritual and that God was interested only in the spiritual part of our being. From that faulty assumption, they jumped to one of two dangerous conclusions. Some Corinthians concluded that since God was interested only in their spiritual side and took no interest in their sexual life, then it didn’t matter what they did sexually as long as they maintained a good spiritual connection with God, thus they had freedom to do whatever they wanted with whomever they wanted. Others in Corinth jumped to the opposite conclusion. They believed that since God had no interest in their sexuality, they should avoid everything that had anything to do with sex.
Both faulty conclusions resulted in ill health, damaged lives, and broken relationships.
Uncontrolled sexual urges: Archaeologists have found abundant evidence of how widespread sexually transmitted diseases were in Corinth
In the book False Intimacy, Harry Schaumburg writes, “When people seek a taste of heaven by their own means, they create a living hell of uncontrollable desires.” That’s what was happening in Corinth.
And the damage infidelity does to a partner is intense. About what her partner’s infidelity did to her, Amy Chan shares, “I felt terribly alone. To have your trust breached and your heart so wounded feels like there is a dark cloud of misery that follows you everywhere you go. It’s with you no matter how you try to distract yourself. Even in sleep you cannot escape, as pain haunts you in the form of nightmares.”
No wonder Paul stresses (in 1 Corinthians 6:18-20), “Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.”
Repressed sexual desires: To conclude that believers should avoid sex altogether is to forget or to deny that God designed sex on purpose, for our good. Most significantly, God designed sex for the sake of unity, for the sake of two people becoming one. This is why Paul stresses in 1 Corinthians 7:5, “Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
I am struck by Paul’s comparison of refraining from sex to fasting from food for a while. When I fast, I know that it is for a limited time. I may be hungry for a while, but I know that eventually the fast will be over and I will eat again. Nobody thinks that they are so spiritual that they will never need to eat again. Paul suggests that the same principle holds true for sex in marriage. A couple may choose to fast from sex for a space of time, by mutual consent, but the expectation is that they will come together again sexually because a marriage needs physical intimacy as much as a body needs food.
In an article entitled “The Psychology of Touch,” F.B. Dresslar writes, “From my interviews and counseling with women, I’ve concluded that most women need eight to twelve meaningful touches a day to keep their energy level high and experience a sense of connectedness with their mate—a hug, a squeeze of the hand, a pat on the shoulder, a gentle kiss. There are approximately five million touch receptors in the human body, more than two million in the hands alone. The right kind of touch releases a pleasing and healing flow of chemicals in the bodies of both the toucher and the touched…. Everybody wins when we touch each other in a proper way.”
Our sexual nature was designed by God and is a gift from God. This part of our being, as with every other aspect of our being, is not to be misused or denied, but is to be subject to God and directed by God.
The Lamp to our Feet & the Light to our Path
I would guess that you have heard Psalm 119:105 many times, but have you taken time to consider the significance of this promise: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”?
“Your word is a lamp to my feet.” Close your eyes and imagine something: Imagine you are walking along in absolute darkness. You cannot see where you are going or what is beneath your feet. By the sound and the feel, you can tell you have stepped on various things such as sticks and rocks and tree roots and sand and mud and hard ground. You have brushed against bushes and branches. Each tiny step you take is tentative and uncertain, and a bit fear-filled. At last, you turn on the lamp you brought along. It is shining down at your feet. It shows you where you stand and what you are standing on. Now you see the sticks and rocks and dirt beneath your feet. Now you see the bushes and branches that surround your legs.
Likewise, the Word of God reveals to us the context in which we find ourselves and the reality in which we live. In essence, the Bible reveals to us who we really are.
Here is what we discover about ourselves from the lamp of God’s Word: We discover that we the beloved of God, made in the very likeness of God for everlasting relationship with God. Yet we learn that we have sinned, and that our connection with God has been broken. Nevertheless, we see that we stand before a cross on which Jesus died for us to restore us with God. And we see that we are now held securely and eternally in God’s capable and loving arms. This is a wonderful sight to see in the light of God’s lamp to our feet.
“Your word is…a light to my path.” God’s Word reveals to us not only where we stand (who we are); it also reveals to us where we are to go (how we are to live). It has been written that God’s Word:
- Gives guidance to our thoughts
- Gives correction to our prejudices
- Gives conviction concerning our wrongs
- Provides a guard against temptations
- Prompts our conscience
- Shapes to our morals
- Stirs up our compassion
- Inspires us to become the best that we can be
- Raises up worthy hopes and dreams within us
- And enables us to know God more truly and more deeply
The most wonderful aspect of God’s light to our path is that the living God speaks to us afresh through the Bible. When we turn to God’s Word, God is there, meeting us where we are, and showing us how to move forward.
An unknown writer shares, “When I meditated on the word GUIDANCE, I was drawn to DANCE at the end of the word. I reflected upon how doing God’s will is a lot like dancing. When two people try to lead, nothing feels right. The movement doesn’t flow with the music, and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky. When one person realizes this and lets the other lead, both bodies begin to flow with the music. One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back or by pressing lightly in one direction or another. It’s as if two become one body, moving beautifully. The dance takes surrender, willingness, and attentiveness from one person and gentle guidance and skill from the other.
“My eyes drew back to the word GUIDANCE. When I saw ‘G,’ I thought of God. The ‘G’ was followed by ‘U’ and ‘I.’ ‘God,’ ‘U’ and ‘I’ ‘dance.’ God, you and I dance.”
Dealing with Conflicts between Believers
Have you ever observed the progression of selfish and petty squabbles? Hurt feelings turn to angry words. Misunderstandings become divisive squabbles. Arguments evolve into bitter grudges. What began as a selfish, petty squabble ends up as a never-ending battle, full of gossip and slander and backstabbing.
It happens in families. It happens between friends and neighbors. And it happens in churches. Indeed, it was happening to a significant extent in the church in Corinth. It started out as selfish, petty squabbles over which Christian leader they preferred, who baptized them, and what foods they could or could not eat. It turned into more contentious arguments over who was more spiritual, and how they could prove it. These arguments escalated into major divisions between various sides, including fights over who gets the bigger portions of the Lord’s Supper, and accusations and judgments against one another—even lawsuits against one another.
Part of the dynamic here is the contrast between Greek perspective and Jewish perspective. The Jewish law expressly forbid a Jewish person to pursue legal action against another person in a non-Jewish court of law. Such an action would be considered blasphemy against the divine law of God. However, legal contention between persons was extremely common in Greek culture. Therefore, extensive legal structures were established. The first step had to do with an arbitrator for each side presenting arguments to an impartial judge. If that failed to settle the matter, there was a court known as The Forty, consisting of forty citizens sixty years of age. If the matter was still not settled, the matter would be referred to a jury consisting of 201 citizens, or 401 citizens for more expensive disputes. Such juries were made up of citizens over 30 years of age. William Barclay summarizes, “It is plain to see that in a Greek city every man was more or less a lawyer and spent a very great part of his time either deciding or listening to law cases. The Greeks were, in fact, famous, or notorious, for their love of going to law.”
Christians are meant to be a reflection of Jesus Christ to the world around us, to the extent that when people look at us, they see the love and goodness of Christ in us. But when people see us engaged in selfish, petty quarrels with each other, they laugh at us and reject Christ. How tragic that is.
Paul’s Greek readers would remember that Plato set forward that the good person will always choose to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong. How much more should Christians be committed to not hurting a fellow believer. F.W. Grosheide stresses, “How is it possible that a Christian would go to court with someone whom he loves as a brother? That is only possible if there is no love for the brethren.”
Philip Yancey shares, “John gives the account of Jesus’ impromptu conversation with a woman at a well. In those days, the husband initiated divorce: this Samaritan woman had been dumped by five different men. Jesus could have begun by pointing out what a mess the woman had made of her life. Yet he did not say, ‘Young woman, do you realize what an immoral thing you’re doing, living with a man who is not your husband?’ Rather he said, in effect, I sense you are very thirsty. Jesus went on to tell her that the water she was drinking would never satisfy and then offered her living water to quench her thirst forever.
“I try to recall this spirit of Jesus when I encounter someone of whom I morally disapprove. This must be a very thirsty person, I tell myself. I once talked with the priest Henri Nouwen just after he had returned from San Francisco. He had visited various ministries to AIDS victims and was moved with compassion by their sad stories. ‘They want love so bad, it’s literally killing them,’ he said. He saw them as thirsty people panting after the wrong kind of water.” (What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 279)
Perhaps this is the greatest solution to our problems with selfish and petty squabbles. The more that we look, with Christ’s eyes, on those who are thirsty, the less we will squabble, and the more we will have compassion on them. Then, indeed, we will be obeying Christ and loving one another.
Treasure God’s Word in Your Heart
The psalmist provides a model for us in Psalm 119:11: “I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you.” It is the New Revised Standard Version that uses the phrase “I treasure your word in my heart.” The English Standard Version reads, “I have stored up your word in my heart.” The Message Bible puts it, “I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart so I won’t sin myself bankrupt.” Each translation offers helpful insight.
“I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you.” What do you do with the things you treasure? Because I treasure my children and grandchildren, I keep pictures of them on my walls and in my computer. That way, they are often in my sight and on my mind. And Debbie and I arrange much of our vacationing around opportunities to see them.
Other people hide their treasures away where they imagine they can keep their treasure safe. Some time ago, an Associated Press article was titled, “Buried Life Savings Just a Rotten Idea.” The article told the story of a man in Beijing, China, who distrusted banks, so, at the age of 77, he dug a hole in the ground and buried his life-savings. Five years later, when he needed some money, he dug it up. To his dismay, he found that the bills had become moldy almost beyond recognition. He was able to salvage only about one-third of his entire savings. The ground is not the proper place to keep our cash, and a book shelf is not the proper place to keep God’s word. As the psalmist exhorts us, the proper place to keep the treasure of God’s word is in our hearts.
“I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” A friend of mine has served for many years as a chaplain with the Red Cross, ministering to people immediately after catastrophes like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the earthquake in Haiti. Having worked in the midst of such tragedies, Toby always encourages people to have ready for themselves a “Go Bag,” consisting of things you would need in the event of a disaster—such things as bottles of water, extra socks, energy bars, a flashlight and batteries, a sweatshirt, a whistle, and a first aid kit. The idea is that we never know when we made suddenly need such things, but if we have stored them in an accessible place, we will be ready for the worst.
Might this also be why we are encouraged to store up God’s word in our heart? If we put together a “Spiritual Go Bag” of important verses to us, that have the power to encourage our souls and revive hope within us, we will be ready in times of need.
“I’ve banked your promises in the vault of my heart so I won’t sin myself bankrupt.” What might it mean for us to bank God’s promises in the vault of our heart? I read the story of a young Christian who came to a mission station in Korea to visit the missionary who had led him to salvation. The young man said to the missionary, “I have been memorizing some verses in the Bible, and I want to quote them to you.”
The missionary listened as the young man recited the entire Sermon on the Mount. He complimented the young man for his remarkable feat of memory, but cautioned the young man that he must not only say the Scriptures but also practice them. With a glowing face, the young man replied, “Oh, that is the way I learned them. I tried to memorize them, but they wouldn’t stick, so I hit on this plan: First I would learn a verse. Then I would practice on a neighbor what the verse said. After that, I found I could remember it.”
This is the best way for us to bank God’s promises in the vault of our heart.
Grace Embraced
In What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Philip Yancey writes, “Would a groom on his wedding night hold the following conversation with his bride? ‘Honey, I love you so much, and I’m eager to spend my life with you. But I need to work out a few details. After we’re married, how far can I go with other women? Can I sleep with them? Kiss them? You don’t mind a few affairs now and then, do you? I know it might hurt you, but just think of all the opportunities you’ll have to forgive me after I betray you!’ To such a Don Juan the only reasonable response is a slap in the face and a ’God forbid!’ Obviously, he does not understand the first thing about love. Similarly, if we approach God with a ‘What can I get away with?’ attitude, it proves we do not grasp what God has in mind for us” (p. 190).
In reading 1 Corinthians 5, it seems that the Christians in Corinth took this even further. For them, it was not simply a question of ‘What can I get away with?’ It became a matter of pride that they looked upon themselves as so rich in grace that they could do whatever they wanted to do and would be covered by grace. Chapter 5 opens with these words, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. And you are arrogant!”
But this was not an embrace of God’s grace; this was an abuse of God’s grace. Such abuse destroys relationships, and it destroys oneself.
In his book The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer spells out the difference between abused grace, which he refers to as “cheap grace,” and genuinely embraced grace, which he identifies as “costly grace”: “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace…. Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before…. Let the Christian rest content with his worldliness and with this renunciation of any higher standard than the world…. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship…. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has…. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him…. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life” (p. 45-48).
God does not extend grace to us so that we can live in selfishness, bragging about how many sins God’s grace covers. God extends grace to us so that we can pass along God’s grace to others in the form of care and compassion and goodness.
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