Saved From Faith
February 21, 2013
I trusted in the gospel.
I believed that Jesus had died for my sins, that He was my only hope for being reconciled to God, that God was good and that He had sovereignly ordained all the events of my life for His glory and for my good.
Then something bad happened, something I couldn’t make sense of. Any way I turned it, the conclusion was either that God had deceived me or that my system was wrong. I couldn’t believe that God had deceived me. And it wasn’t possible that my system was wrong. The system was “the gospel,” and to reject it was to reject Christianity.
For months I struggled. I wrestled. I eventually grew weary and loosened my grip. I basically told God if this thing was going to work, He’d have to hang on to me.
Somewhere in all that it dawned on me. (Maybe “God spoke to me” or maybe “the Spirit prompted my heart” or maybe I heard “the still small voice.” Maybe many years of church teaching came together at a particular moment or maybe I just had a random thought that really made sense. I’m far less inclined these days to attribute to God thoughts and ideas that go through my head.) I realized I had been trusting that. I trusted that Jesus had died for my sins. I trusted that He was my hope. I trusted that God was good and that He had my life planned out. I trusted in that “gospel.” I trusted in the Bible. I trusted in the system I’d so carefully crafted, with the help of so many others and the almost continual reinforcement from others that I was “godly” and “a good example.”
And all of that buffered me from simply trusting Christ.
What if the Bible wasn’t all I thought it was? What if the system I’d put together (or learned from others or however those things happen) wasn’t sound? What if tons of what I’d believed wasn’t actually true? What if I’d been wrong?
When I realized all of those “what if’s” were real possibilities, I was left with a question: Can I still trust Christ? Can I still trust a good God?
Even if I can’t trust that He’ll do anything in particular – protect those I love, bring good things in my life, keep bad things out of my life, etc – and even if I can’t trust that I can have some inside track into knowing what He’s doing in the world and in my life, can I trust Him?
He’s a person, you know. And trust is a relationship. If my system falls apart, God is still who He is. If my trust is in what I know, rather than in God Himself, is my faith actually in me, or in ideas, and not in Christ?
Jesus is the One who saves us. Not a concept. Not an idea. My trust is not in a set of intellectual claims. It is in a person.
In a coming post we want to question the use of “the gospel” in the contemporary American Christian context, because I fear I was part of its misuse. Look for that soon.
I believed that Jesus had died for my sins, that He was my only hope for being reconciled to God, that God was good and that He had sovereignly ordained all the events of my life for His glory and for my good.
Then something bad happened, something I couldn’t make sense of. Any way I turned it, the conclusion was either that God had deceived me or that my system was wrong. I couldn’t believe that God had deceived me. And it wasn’t possible that my system was wrong. The system was “the gospel,” and to reject it was to reject Christianity.
For months I struggled. I wrestled. I eventually grew weary and loosened my grip. I basically told God if this thing was going to work, He’d have to hang on to me.
Somewhere in all that it dawned on me. (Maybe “God spoke to me” or maybe “the Spirit prompted my heart” or maybe I heard “the still small voice.” Maybe many years of church teaching came together at a particular moment or maybe I just had a random thought that really made sense. I’m far less inclined these days to attribute to God thoughts and ideas that go through my head.) I realized I had been trusting that. I trusted that Jesus had died for my sins. I trusted that He was my hope. I trusted that God was good and that He had my life planned out. I trusted in that “gospel.” I trusted in the Bible. I trusted in the system I’d so carefully crafted, with the help of so many others and the almost continual reinforcement from others that I was “godly” and “a good example.”
And all of that buffered me from simply trusting Christ.
What if the Bible wasn’t all I thought it was? What if the system I’d put together (or learned from others or however those things happen) wasn’t sound? What if tons of what I’d believed wasn’t actually true? What if I’d been wrong?
When I realized all of those “what if’s” were real possibilities, I was left with a question: Can I still trust Christ? Can I still trust a good God?
Even if I can’t trust that He’ll do anything in particular – protect those I love, bring good things in my life, keep bad things out of my life, etc – and even if I can’t trust that I can have some inside track into knowing what He’s doing in the world and in my life, can I trust Him?
He’s a person, you know. And trust is a relationship. If my system falls apart, God is still who He is. If my trust is in what I know, rather than in God Himself, is my faith actually in me, or in ideas, and not in Christ?
Jesus is the One who saves us. Not a concept. Not an idea. My trust is not in a set of intellectual claims. It is in a person.
In a coming post we want to question the use of “the gospel” in the contemporary American Christian context, because I fear I was part of its misuse. Look for that soon.
