As we start the Experiencing God Bible Study I’ve been looking for ways to communicate both freedom and discipline. There is an unavoidable tension between the freedom we have in Christ and the holiness God’s Law demands of us. Both are absolute.
The believer in Jesus is totally free. All requirements of the Law are fulfilled in Christ and therefore released from us. In Christ we already are declared righteous. Nothing we do adds to that perfect righteousness because it is the righteousness of Christ, not ours. So we are free. We are fully and truly free from all obligation to follow the Law. Jesus died to carry that impossible burden for us and He rose to fulfill His promise that “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30).
On the other hand, the demands of Scripture do not relax for the follower of Christ, but rather they intensify. “Be holy for I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev. 19:2), does not go away in the New Testament but is restated by Jesus as an ongoing requirement (Matt 5:48). Jesus said that not a single dot or scribble from the Old Testament would disappear until “heaven and earth pass away” (Matt. 5:18). Holiness for the Christian is not just encouraged, it is demanded. And this does require effort.
Dallas Willard well said, “Grace is opposed to earning, it is not opposed to effort.” The New Testament is clear that the believer in Jesus can and must do everything he can to resist sin and pursue growth in character and fruitfulness. “Put to death the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13) and “put off your old self” (Eph. 4:22) are not passive but active commands. “Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness…” (Col. 3:12) and “put on the whole armor of God” (Eph. 6:11) require deliberate action.
So disciplined commitment is required of the believer. This has nothing to do with earning salvation. Salvation is a free gift of grace. Our discipline and holiness are a response to this full salvation – they flow from it and do not contribute to it. But the result is clear: a fruit of true conversion is self-control. We can and must be disciplined. We must make commitments. We must set goals and work to fulfill them.
The key to this is setting the goals yourself. There is a double danger here. One danger is of taking someone else’s goals and practices and bearing it yourself as a law. This will become burdensome – producing guilt and frustration. Let’s say your Mom prayed for an hour every day with a detailed journal, easily keeping track of hundreds of different prayer requests and responding with hand-written notes. That is a wonderful expression of a life of faith. But if you take it as a legal mandate from God to implement your mother’s prayer life you will spend years in frustration, feeling inadequate and wondering why it’s so hard to do what she did so easily. Your Mom developed those patterns over decades based on her personality, schedule, life stage and ultimately based on her relationship with the Lord. It is not her LAW but her LIFE of prayer you should emulate.
Each of us is a unique creation of God with a unique relationship with our Father. Some of us love to be outside in nature for prayer walks, while others have severe allergies. Some of us enjoy detailed analytical Bible study while others have notebooks filled with colorful prayer drawings. Some believers are gifted musically and connect with God by listening or making music. Others are activists who experience God by serving the needs of others. Some of us are energized by people and love praying out loud with groups, while others love to read devotional books and charge up alone with a cup of tea.
It is a great danger to impose someone else’s disciplines upon ourselves because it can quickly turn into a burdensome law. And Jesus freed us from all of that!
But there is a twin danger – the danger of having no law at all. The Bible calls this “being a law to yourself” or doing “what is right in your own eyes.” That is the refrain of the book of Judges which was the darkest time in Israel’s history. We must be suspicious of our own selfishness, laziness and idolatry. “The heart is deceitful above all things” (Jer. 17:9). “Should we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Absolutely not!” (Rom. 6:1, NIV). It is a sin to neglect the love of God and we must not allow ourselves to persist in this idolatry. Rather, we should resolve to love the Lord as we are – His beloved children, made in His image to uniquely enjoy Him and share His love with others.
So as we begin this new Bible study, don’t worry about anyone else’s commitments or practices. Rather, settle in your own heart the commitment you can make with freedom, peace and joy. Use the workbook (or not) as a tool to develop your relationship with the Lord. Meditate on the gospel of John and above all, let the truth of Jesus’ glory and grace take deeper root in your heart, mind and life.
Abandon any external Law of prayer and embrace your own LIFE of prayer!