Eph 2:8-9  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

The day I got “saved”…

Everyone there had to know that my salvation was only by Gods grace. I mean… I walked in so overly full of the worlds aftereffects, that I’m sure it was hard for most, to relate to much of what I had to say. At the time I was an ex-professional musician and was always trying to connect with the saints in the only ways I knew… secular music, bars, and rock-stars. Needles to say, I received my full share of uncomfortable, why aren’t you more like us, stares, coupled with the traditional moments of awkward silence. …That never went well. But that’s where it all began. Right there in those early, impressionable years, when I was what was then called a “baby Christian”, I received my first lessons on “conforming to the image of Christian”. I’d like to say that I stopped them in their manipulative tracks, but I didn’t. I simply learned from my experiences that I needed to change if I was to fellowship with these fine people. And they were fine people. Some of the best I’ve ever known. People that is…

Note: When everyone’s going on, about Jesus healing the leper, it’s not a good time to bring up Pink Floyd.

    As time clicked on there were other lessons to be learned. For example, if I wanted to be taken seriously, I instinctively knew that I’d have to shed that “newborn again” label. And the best way to accomplish that was to pursue a major in “Christian-ese” with a minor in Bible study. So by working diligently toward my goals, I eventually became fluent in the use of many handy catchphrases such as, “If the Lord wills…”, which means… I’ll decide later; or I could throw in “God told me…”, a subtle way of suggesting that no one should challenge what I’m about say; and my all time favorite “I’ll pray about it”, which loosely translated, and if taken back to the original Greek, breaks down to… No!

It’s all very funny but the question is, why do we do these things? In my opinion it starts out innocently enough. We have a desire to know and to Love this wonderful God-man who gave us His eternal life… as He took on our death. But somewhere in the fog of life we lose track of the one who rendered us dead to the law and we start trying to “be”. We try to be holy, to be righteous, sanctified, and worthy. And then we start following “the rules”… Bible reading, church attending, tithing, and praying. We become so busy at being “good Christians” that we miss the fact that He loved us way before we ever started performing.

Gal 3:3  Are you so foolish? Having started out with the Spirit, are you now ending up with the flesh?

Now don’t get me wrong… I believe in reading my Bible and prayer… but I can not read or pray enough… no amount of self effort will draw Jesus one inch closer, because I already have all the things I’m trying to be. Jesus is… my holiness, He is my righteousness, my sanctification, and it’s His life that dwells within me. I don’t have to reach out to draw in His presence. He lives inside of me. How much closer could He get? And don’t forget that nothing can separate us from the love of God. (Rom 8:38-39)

That’s why when some well-meaning Believer asks me to come to their new church where the Spirit is really moving, and then offers me the promise that if I come I will never be the same again. I take their hand, look with care into their eyes, and humbly say, “I’ll pray about it”.