Contracted with Christ...

     Would you rather have a promise, or a contract?  I have to admit that while I like the "no-strings attached" feel of a promise, I find the contract a lot safer.  After all, if I keep my side of the deal and the other party does the same, everyone wins, right?  Conversely, If I fail to keep my side, or vice versa, then steps can be taken to get what I should fairly receive by right of justice.  Not so with a promise.  If the other side fails, I miss out.  It's no wonder the contract has become so popular.  Mutual agreements (enforced by law) certainly provide more motivation to do what you promised.

     Of course...the downside of a contract is that once you're in, even if you can't meet the obligation, you still have to.  There's no escaping the bond of a contract, at least no ethical way exists that I know of.  Failure to meet your side can be disastrous.

     The reason I asked was because I think everyone should pause and look and see if their walk with God is promise-based or contract-based.  I'm not trying to ask a silly question, because I know that many times I have lived in a contract.  However, the biggest problem with my contract was that it had just one party, and that was...me.  Think I'm being absurd?  Take a look:

Okay, so maybe I'm being a little silly in my metaphor.  Honestly, though, do you think you might find a similar document in your mind if you looked for it?  If you do, it's not one more reason to feel like a failure.  However, it is something that should be changed.

     If anyone had the idea of a promise down versus a contract, it would probably have been Abraham.  One reads all about him starting in Genesis 12, and throughout his story there are both successes and failures.  One thing seems to remain fairly constant through all of it, however, and that is his belief in God's promise.  God promises him a new land and children, which may not seem altogether too impossible.  But to get a perspective on Abraham and the significance of his belief that God would keep His promise, one can zoom forward a few thousand years to the Apostle Paul who is writing his letter to the Romans.  In chapter 4 there are some very interesting notes about Abraham and his circumstances of belief. 

Starting at verse 13:
"For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.  For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.  That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.  In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”  He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.  That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”  But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." (Romans 4:13-25, ESV)

    There's a lot in here that can be missed if it gets read too quickly.  I'd recommend reading it at least twice.  The first verse says something that is actually a bit surprising.  The promise to Abraham came through faith, not law.  Even more surprising was the circumstances under which his faith occurred.  He was too old for children and had a barren wife.  In spite of this, he had no unbelief to make him waver but simply believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.  In other words, it was more than a contract.  Without Abraham being able to promise God anything, God promised Abraham many things.  The only thing Abraham did was have faith.  "Faith assures us of things we expect and convinces us of the existence of things we cannot see."  (Hebrews 11:1, NOG)  In other words, Abraham hoped for something he couldn't yet see and believed God would give it to him, and that was enough.  There were no rules or regulations, no GPA requirements, or community service projects.  Abraham wasn't even required to be perfect (shocker!).  There was God, and there was Abraham, and there was the promise, not dependent on what Abraham could do, but on what God would do.

    Paul's letter serves as a reminder that rules and regulations will never advance us in our walk with God.  Our relationship with Him is based on a promise, not a contract.  Allow me to take the verses of our passage and render them in The Message, a paraphrase of the Bible*.

"That famous promise God gave Abraham—that he and his children would possess the earth—was not given because of something Abraham did or would do. It was based on God’s decision to put everything together for him, which Abraham then entered when he believed. If those who get what God gives them only get it by doing everything they are told to do and filling out all the right forms properly signed, that eliminates personal trust completely and turns the promise into an ironclad contract! That’s not a holy promise; that’s a business deal. A contract drawn up by a hard-nosed lawyer and with plenty of fine print only makes sure that you will never be able to collect. But if there is no contract in the first place, simply a promise—and God’s promise at that—you can’t break it.  This is why the fulfillment of God’s promise depends entirely on trusting God and his way, and then simply embracing him and what he does. God’s promise arrives as pure gift. That’s the only way everyone can be sure to get in on it, those who keep the religious traditions and those who have never heard of them. For Abraham is father of us all. He is not our racial father—that’s reading the story backward. He is our faith father.  We call Abraham “father” not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody. Isn’t that what we’ve always read in Scripture, God saying to Abraham, “I set you up as father of many peoples”? Abraham was first named “father” and then became a father because he dared to trust God to do what only God could do: raise the dead to life, with a word make something out of nothing. When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, “You’re going to have a big family, Abraham!”  Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.  (Romans 4:13-25, MSG)

     It's time to toss the contract.  You don't need it because God never wrote it.  There is no need to live under fear that when you fail, it disqualifies you somehow from walking with God so you must patch it up in order to look good in His eyes.  He knows you inside and out- your greatest hopes, your darkest thoughts, and He loves you anyway.  It's that simple.  Ready to tear up the contract?  You've been given a promise- eternal life in Jesus Christ, no strings attached.  Live your life for God but not by fulfilling terms.  Live for God by following His Word, repenting when you don't, and walking with Him as a Father and not a business partner.







ESV Means English Standard Version
MSG Refers to The Message, Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.
*The Message is NOT authoritative Scripture, but a paraphrase.  It's nice for comparing to The Bible, but shouldn't be taken as the Bible.
NOG means Names of God Bible © 2011 by Baker Publishing Group.

Do-It-Yourself Faith?

     "If you want something done right..." I don't think I need to finish this phrase because you probably already know how it ends: "you have to do it yourself".  If you want to get something, that's your responsibility.  If you want an income, a task done, or a letter written the task lies squarely with you.  After all, it's pretty difficult to trust another person with something that ought to be your job, right?  What if something goes terribly wrong, and you get blamed for it or have no chance to remedy it?  No, no, it's far safer to do what you have to do solo.

     The problem is that a lifestyle based on doing everything by oneself gets pretty exhausting and can be unproductive.  The truth is that everyone makes mistakes, and assuming that only oneself can be trusted is a kind of discouraging view.  Not everything should be delegated, but no one can do everything for himself.  If you don't agree, here's a good example.

     In the days of the Roman empire, the Christian Church was still very young.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ was spreading  and receiving a varied reception.  There were people who agreed with it and people who disagreed with it.  Among the more conspicuous of those who did not agree were many of the Jewish folks of the time.  An examination of the book of Acts in the New Testament shows that it didn't take long before the religious leaders of the Jews arrested members of the early Church.  The reception of the Gospel was rather chilly as far as the Jewish people were concerned.  This seemed a bit strange because the Jews had been given a law from God years and years ago that taught them how to serve God.  Furthermore, they had been following that law for years (with a few extras) and were looking forward to a Savior who would give them freedom (not just spiritual freedom either, for Israel was under Roman domination at the time).  When Jesus came, the ancient prophecies about their expected Savior started coming true.  The Jews as a whole, however, did not see Jesus for Who He was (and is), and so when the earliest followers of Christ started trying to proclaim Him as the fulfillment of God's promise they met some of their most adamant opposition at the hands of their brothers and sisters!  One example is Saul, a man then obsessed with trying to destroy the Church.  The story of how his mind was changed can be read in Acts chapter 9.  He received a name change from Saul to Paul and became one of the early Church's great leaders.  He also wrote a number of letters to different Churches internationally, one of which is his epistle to the Romans.  He spends some time in the letter talking about the spiritual condition of the Jews.  We pick up His words in Romans 9:30 and continue into chapter 10:

     "What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.  Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written,

“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense;
    and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

10 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.  For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.  For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.  But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  (Romans 9:30-10:13, ESV, emphasis added).

     The Jews were working for do-it-yourself righteousness.  They wanted to be justified and good in God's eyes, but they wanted it on their own terms, trying to work out their path to being "good enough" for God.  They saw a righteous life as something they had to make for themselves, and because they insisted on doing it their way, many missed Jesus when He came to earth.  Here's a question:

How often have we done the same?

     I'm not saying that as Christians we've rejected Jesus so we could earn our own righteousness.  What I'm saying is that we often think that the areas of our lives or the areas of our walk with God that aren't in great shape are something we can fix by ourselves.  This isn't true, though.  It's tempting to think that we are a great resource for ourselves, but the truth is that no solution to fix ourselves that we create can ever perfect us or even really improve us much.  Struggles with temptation, strained relationships, ugly addictions, and nasty tempers are not things that we can (or should) handle on our own.  We need the help of God to work through our struggles and troubles.  It's by His power that we're saved so why on earth do we sometimes go "Now I can take it from here?"  God wants to be involved with every area of our lives.  So when we shut Him out and try to handle things on our own, not only are we shooting ourselves in the foot, but we're actually hurting God.  Now please don't take what I'm saying as a memo from some perfect Christian to make you realize what a failure you are.  I can't even begin to claim that I've let God help me in every struggle.  I've tried way too often to handle things by myself, and it just doesn't work out.  That's why I'm grateful for God and the fact that no matter how many times we fail to acknowledge or ask Him to help us, He stands waiting for us to simple call on His name.  Where are you struggling today?  Call on God to help you in that area, no matter what it is.  

     If you've never called on God before but want to, it's your time.  Like every person, you've sinned against God and disobeyed His commands.  You've fallen short of His glory, and you don't deserve Him, but you're in good company.  No person has ever completely followed God and done what He said except for One Man, and His name is Jesus.  He is the Son of God, and He came to earth fully human yet fully God, and He lived a perfect life so that He could die on a cross and shed His blood to wash away your sins.  He rose from the dead three days later, and now He's still sitting at His Father's right hand.  His gift to you is freedom from your sins, eternal life with Him, and the Holy Spirit to help you through the rest of your life.  There are no strings attached, but once you accept Him, you will never be the same.  He's calling you.  Are you ready to come to Him?  If you are, you could pray something like this.  Just speak to God.  You don't have to look in a certain direction.  Just talk to Him because He's listening.

    Dear God, I'm a sinner.  I've done wrong and disobeyed You, fallen short of Your standards and made myself unworthy of You.  But I believe that You sent Jesus Your Son to die on a cross for my sin, and that You raised Him on the third day, and that He now sits at Your right hand.  I confess You Jesus as my Lord and Savior, and as the ruler of my life.  Please come into my heart and send me Your Holy Spirit.  Thank you for making me free.  In Jesus name, Amen.

     Whether you've said that prayer for the first time, or you've been following Jesus for a long time, you need to know that God loves you more than you can even quantify.  He wants to take care of you and be with you, and He's interested in you.  In the words of Psalm 40:5:

 Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.   (NKJV)

(NKJV Means New King James Version)

(ESV Means English Standard Version)