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Trust in the Lord with
all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding
-Proverbs 3:5
My wife is great. She has
all these amazing thoughts that go flying around in her head day in and
day out and when we are together, she just loves to share them with me.
I love it because I am such a poor conversationalist that I can shift
into what I do best…listen. Well, what is so terrific about Marcy’s
willingness to verbalize stuff and my willingness to listen is that I am
very often the beneficiary of some profound insights into the gospel.
Anyway, the other day
Marcy was having one of her brain tornados and out came this stunning
comment about man’s constant struggle to understand and articulate the
gospel. She reminded me that everyone has a somewhat different
understanding of the details of the gospel and that, in order to enjoy
true peace of mind, our trust must be in the Lord and not in our unique
perspective on the good news. Pow! Right between the eyes!
Let me share something with you that I
have struggled with over the years. Ever since God began revealing His
grace to me in order to drag me out from under the law I had imposed on
myself, I have made a law out of correctly understanding and believing
the gospel. Brilliant, huh? God sets me free from one set of rules and I
promptly tie myself up to some more.
I wanted so badly to be right in my
interpretation of the gospel and then I wanted you to agree with me. If
you didn’t, I cut you loose and dumped you. You were less than me in
regard to understanding spiritual things. Looking back, I think I was so
impatient with those who had another point of view because it put into
question whether or not my view was valid. And if my view was not
correct then I feared some sort of divine spanking for my ignorance. You
see I had made an idol out of my believing right. My confidence was not
necessarily in my observable work but rather in my inner ability to
understand better than others the work of the Cross. And when that was
challenged or disputed, I experienced fear and anger because I was
losing the peace of mind I had which was based on my understanding the
gospel rather than resting in the One the gospel spoke about.
How about you? What happens to your
peace of mind when your understanding of the gospel changes? What
happens to your sense of security when you struggle with not
understanding some aspect of the gospel? What happens to your assurance
when you no longer understand the gospel the way others you were once in
agreement with understand it? Well, if the foundation of your peace of
mind and assurance has been in your unalterable, infallible
understanding of the gospel and that idol is blown away, you will likely
experience fear, anxiety, doubt, and perhaps even a little anger.
Do you understand everything there is
to know about the gospel of Jesus Christ? Can you honestly say you know
someone or some ministry who does? I used to answer, “yes”, to those
questions, but no more. You can count me in with Peter who, obviously
way beyond any understanding I might have about the gospel, also found
many of the things that Paul taught “hard to understand” (2 Peter
3:15-16). Friend, there is no shame nor should there be any fear in not
knowing all there is to know about the good news. Why? Because our
confidence is not in our figuring out and nailing down all the details
of how we have been reconciled to God through Christ. Our confidence is
in He who has done it…period!
I want to encourage you to put your
confidence in Christ’s ability to have made you a righteous person,
not in your ability to understand how He did it. It is o.k. if you do
not comprehend the length, height, and depth of all that He has
accomplished on your behalf. No one ever has. What matters is that He
has done it. You are not on the hook to have perfect belief or perfect
understanding. Don’t let others fool you into thinking that they have
the gospel all wrapped up in a nice little package and that, if you
don’t believe like them, you are somehow less spiritual or inferior.
Be grateful for whatever understanding
you do have about the gospel. After all, it is He who has given you that
understanding and given it to you to the depth He has chosen. If He
wants you to comprehend more of His grace, then He is on the hook to do
the revealing. In the meantime, “trust in the Lord with all your heart
and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5)!
Grace and peace to
you always!
John
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