Selling God Short

This article was guest authored by: 

I often come upon a belief held by people that seems to be based in a feeling that God is not completely trustworthy. This sounds quite odd but please bear with me. This is especially troubling because I get this impression not from unbelievers but from brothers and sisters in Christ. And this not from casual or careless believers but from people I consider sincere believers. This feeling usually arises when talking about the individual nature of our relationship with the Father. There are two primary ways of seeing the Christian experience – basically individual and basically corporate. When we choose one of these paths (and we must choose because our walk cannot be simultaneously basically or primarily individual and corporate). The longer I go through this life the more I see the Christian experience as being basically and primarily individual.

When I express this view to other Christians I almost always experience resistance. These are the “yeah but” moments when we talk about the Father’s complete commitment to us and His ability to deal with ALL of the situations of our living. The idea that Christianity is either primarily or exclusively corporate is deeply embedded in many of us. This can be as strong as the sentiment once expressed to me that you can, as a Christian, either go to the church organization or you can go to hell.

I am troubled that so many believers don’t really feel that they can walk with the Father in a personal relationship with complete confidence that He will lead us to live in a way pleasing to Him. The list of objections to the personal approach to relationship with God are many. We feel that “going it alone” entails too much risk of being led astray. We feel that we cannot trust a personal relationship with God because we are not “mature enough” to make it work. The list is near endless. All these arguments are very legitimate if we look at the relationship from our end. We are all far too imperfect to be trusted too far. The reality of our walk with the Lord is not about us however. It is definitely not about our abilities, talents and resources. The Lord has no illusion on this point: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Note that this verse in John does not say that we cannot do anything important, or anything hard or even anything good. It says apart from Him we can do NOTHING. We need to stop playing loosey goosey with the word and teaching of God. God means exactly what He says. The Christian walk has always been about God’s abilities and His doing and nothing of our works and abilities. All the objections about the personal relationship with God have one thing in common – they are based on the feeling that our walk depends on some work, resource, attainment or ability on our part. This does not mean that our Christian life has no component of action to it. In writing this paper I am “doing something.” The important point is – who provides for the doing.

The sufficiency of God to work in our lives is most graphically illustrated in the use of the title “father” as we find it in the Bible. The word in Greek is pater and carries the understanding of “one who has infused his own spirit into others, who actuates and governs their minds.” (Strongs 3962). This does not leave me with the feeling that God is really counting on any independent resource from us to make this whole endeavor work.

The entire concept of grace is a powerful testimony to the sufficiency of the Father: “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the riches of His grace.” (Ephesians 1:4-5) Consider the grace process: He chooses us, He provides reconciliation as a gift, and He requires of us only that which we are capable of doing – making a choice. By reducing the entire process (from our end) to that which we are naturally able to provide – a free will choice, He has made the divine declaration that this entire process is to depend on our submission and His complete adequacy. Every person who ever lived possessed a free will. This makes us naturally able to make a choice.

We find this dynamic of choice in the entire Christian life. Our relationship with the Father begins with faith: “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.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) Further, our whole life with God is founded on faith: “But without faith it is impossible to please Him (God) for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6) What does choice have to do with faith? Faith begins with choice – we believe (have faith) in what we choose to believe in. We believe God when we choose to do so. Further, we believe in God to the degree we choose to. Eventually we must see that we believe in God completely (He is all He says He is) or we must reject Him and go another way. A partly believable God is no god at all.

We can see that the entire Christian experience was set up by the Father based on His abilities and what we are capable of doing. Namely, He does everything and we choose to follow Him and give ourselves to Him or not. Even the faith that is required does not come from any resource of our own but from Christ: “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” (Galatians 2:16)

I believe that the great stumbling block in accepting the personal walk with the Father is coming to an acceptance of our utter inability to do anything. Yet we have been graced with a system from a loving Father that provides everything we need and is totally workable for our success. If we can come to see that we don’t need to bring anything to the party except our submission to the Father and our God given ability to choose, then there is nothing that prevents the personal relationship with God from working.

The last thing I would like to touch on about this reality is the full acceptance of who God says He is. All the fears and concerns about a personal relationship with the Father disappear if we will take God at His word. If God is the all-powerful, all knowing, everywhere present being He claims to be then how can we possibly make a mistake that is beyond His ability to correct? There is no amount of immaturity, ignorance or folly that is too great for God to fix. All we need to do is submit to His fatherhood. Christians are trapped in unproductive and self-destructive lives of totally corporate relationship with the Father because they will not take God at His word. As a consequence, they waste away looking to people and organizations to lead them aright. By the way, the same situation applies to the individual walk. If we ignore God’s leading in our personal relationship with Him then things can go just as wrong.

If you feel led by the Father to some participation in a corporate activity, then you should by all means follow this leading. Please remember, however, that your relationship with the Father is first and foremost a personal relationship that is in no way defined or restricted by any manmade system or organization. The only way we can hope to grow to the place the Father wants us to be, is to do so in an individual relationship. This is the major consequence of choosing the individual relationship over the corporate namely, growing to be all the representation of Christ the Father wants each of us to be. We should have no fears that we will go too far wrong if we are looking to our heavenly Father for direction. After all, we are protected by the Father’s overarching love for us.

Centuries before Christ, the Psalmist said: “If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities… who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee…” (Psa. 130:3-4).

It is doubtful whether the Psalmist understood the basis upon which a just God, through the ages, has so graciously forgiven sins, but this has since been revealed in the Epistles of Paul. There we read: “God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32). But this is only part of the truth, for God forgives sinners, not merely because Christ desires this, but because Christ paid for their sins and purchased their redemption. Thus Eph. 1:7 declares: “In [Christ] we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”

And thus Paul could proclaim to his hearers in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch: “Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: “And by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:38,39).

Obviously such forgiveness can never be rescinded or revoked, for it is based upon the full and complete payment of our whole debt of sin by “the precious blood of Christ.”

Sad to say, many people do not feel they need forgiveness, for they have not seen themselves as they truly are in the sight of a holy God, but those who are conscious of their sins and are willing to say with the prodigal son: “I have sinned,” may experience the peace and joy of sins forgiven by faith in Christ who paid sin’s penalty for us.

Here is forgiveness that can never be revoked because it is based on the “one offering [of Christ at Calvary]” by which our Lord “hath perfected forever them that are sanctified [i.e., set apart as His own]” (Heb. 10:14).