New Christians are exciting to be around. You can usually pick them out in a group. They’re the ones with the glow on their faces, ecstatic over the fact that God loves them and excited about what Jesus is doing in their lives. But somewhere down the road, the glow vanishes. What happens after true repentance has taken place and new birth comes into the life of a born again believer? What goes wrong in the lives of most Christians so that they lose the joy and excitement they experienced as new believers?
Well for many people, the Christian life takes on a performance orientation. “Let me see how much I can do for God to prove my love for Him and get Him to accept me and love me even more.” So, rather than walking by faith in the love of God, many Christians try to earn His love and acceptance through their performance. It’s the mind-set that says, “If I perform, then God will bless.” But that attitude robs you of the joy knowing and experiencing Christ’s love and grace.
Bob George gives this testimony: “I was born again as a very self-sufficient lost person and I became a very self-sufficient saved person. So getting involved in an organization that was very evangelical, very witness minded was easy. But the deception that sometimes occurs is: if you’re witnessing that means you’re very spiritual. Now, some other organization may communicate if you memorize Scripture you’re really spiritual or if you pray a lot you’re really spiritual. So it kind of depends upon which group you’re associated with because they establish that identity for you.” For Bob, coming out of a sales background, witnessing wasn’t hard to do. “I just changed products from carpeting to Jesus. So I was selling Him. I witnessed and everyone thought, ‘Boy, he’s really spiritual.’ And here I was a babe in Christ growing, but I liked that being petted on the head. I liked the acceptance that was coming from it. That’s something I’d been working on all my life, that is, acceptance. So witnessing was reinforcing a pattern of performance that was there.” So for many people the Christian life takes on a performance perspective.
So, how are you to live the Christian life? Well, Colossians 2:6 communicates clearly how you and I are to live the Christian life: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him.” How are you to live the Christian life according to this verse? By faith. You received Jesus as Savior and Lord by trusting Him to forgive you and give you His Life. In the same way, by faith you trust Him to live His Life through yours.
Often times, we enter the performance game because we don’t know that God accepts us. We know that He loves us, but we’re not quite sure that He accepts us or likes us. However, Ephesians 1:6 in the King James Version says, “To the praise of the glory of His grace, through which He hath made us accepted in the Beloved.” Christianity is not a performance based religion. It’s a vital, pulsating relationship with Jesus Christ. There’s only one way to enter into that relationship, by faith. By trusting God to do for you and in you and through you what you cannot do for yourself. And there’s only one way to enjoy that relationship, by faith. You can’t exercise faith in Jesus Christ and try to earn His love and acceptance at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive.
So, approaching the Christian life with a performance mentality is nothing more than living under the law – trying to earn God’s love and acceptance through obedience to the ten commandments or some other set of standards, rules or regulations. That’s an impossibility. Much of the New Testament was written to show us this truth. So, to recapture the joy of your salvation, you must die to living under the law. Paul says in Galatians 2:19-20, “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I’ve been crucified…”
In his testimony, Bob George said, “I received more acceptance from my witnessing than I did in the business world. It was better that selling carpet. So here was all this desire to be accepted. In fact, there’s a world of difference between being loved and being accepted. That came to him a number of years later as a Christian when he was sitting across from his son at the breakfast table following graduation from college. They were talking and in the conversation his son said to him, “Dad I always knew you loved me.” And that’s true.” Then Bob asked him a question that he’d never thought of before and he’d never asked before. “Son did you always know that I accepted you?” And there was a pause when he said, “No, Dad I didn’t.” Then Bob said, “Tell me more about that.” His son responded, “Well, Dad I just always felt like you would’ve accepted me more had I gone into full-time Christian work like you instead of the real estate business or had I read the Bible more or maybe I’d gone to church more. In other words, his acceptance was being based upon what he was doing. Now he knew I loved him, but his acceptance was in what he was doing and wasn’t doing. That opened up a whole new realm of understanding to me that I was doing the same thing with God. I knew that He loved me. “For God so loved the world . . . “ He loved the world, he had to love me. He had no choice in that. But His acceptance of me was in what I was doing for Him. As he verbalized that to his son on a human level, he realized that’s what God was saying to him. God doesn’t accept us for what we do or don’t do. He accepts us “in the Beloved.”
Now when we come to Christ and Christ comes to take up residence inside of you and me, we are on a totally different support system than our own. So Paul could say and You can say and I can say – “For me to live is Christ” – “I’m crucified with Christ nevertheless I live . . .” It’s like a Baby and a Mother in a story told by a grandfather. “Four years ago our daughter miraculously had the cutest grandbaby ever born. Debbie was married to a radiologist, so he and John had many conversations about what was taking place in mommy’s tummy. He said to John, “Now I want to get this clear. Are you telling me that the baby in Debbie’s stomach is totally surrounded by water?” In other words, the baby is in a sac of water.” “That’s correct,” John said. “Well, does God have some heavenly noseplugs for it or what? People don’t live in water, fish live in water. Debbie’s not going to have a fish is she?” No! “Well that was reassuring. “So how does that baby live when people don’t live in water?” Oh, because Debbie lives! “Well, how does that baby breathe?” Well, because Debbie breathes! “How does that baby eat?” Well, because Debbie eats. “He thought to himself, if I could talk to that little fellow in there he would say, ‘For me to live is mom’ – “I’m crucified, nevertheless I live, yet not I but mom lives in me. And the life I live in this womb I live by faith in mom, the one who loves me and gave herself for me.” That baby is on a totally different support system than it’s own.
You see, by faith in Christ, you can experience His life and enjoy the relationship He’s called us to. Jesus Christ gave His live for you, in order to give His life to you, so that you may life through His life. For you to live is Christ. By faith you are completely pleasing to your heavenly Father. He loves you, He accepts you, He even likes you totally apart from your performance. So by faith, allow Christ to live His life through you every moment of every day. And you live your life through faith in Him to be a completely sufficient support system for your every need and desire.
