Yesterday, I was speaking to a dear woman who could be considered a model of the “good Christian woman.” She’s in her late sixties, teaches pre-schoolers, loves her family, and serves on mission trips. She loves God and is firmly committed to the ways of Jesus.

Yet, she’s still uncertain if she’s obedient enough to go to Heaven. I got the sense that if her faith wavered, her eternity would be in jeopardy.

I tried to lead her into a different way of thinking about it: First, it’s impossible for us to maintain our faith in Christ at a 100 percent level for the rest of our lives. There’s simply too much set against us. It’s an unfair and unrealistic expectation of us.

Secondly, as I’ve noticed in my own journey, we can begin to obsess about our capacity to trust Christ, wondering, “Do I trust him enough? Do I love him enough? Am I doing enough? Obedient enough?” Notice the first person singular pronoun in each sentence. And, notice the word ‘enough.’ Are we not making faith a new work here? Isn’t obedience to the law a tyranny of the ‘enough?’ It seems as though we’ve unwittingly made our capacity to ‘trust and obey’ the new benchmark for worthiness.

Perhaps a better way of looking at obedience is to find security in the obedience of Jesus himself. Our salvation wasn’t simply secured by the Cross. It was also won by the daily obedience and goodness-of-heart of a Son towards a Father. At every momentary point of decision and each posture of the heart, Jesus’ own obedience to the Father turned back a wayward humanity. He wasn’t born into sin, nor made the choice to, yet he did have the capacity to. This aspect of his humanity is absolutely critical if his followers are to have any hope of becoming like him. It was not enough that he should die in obedience to the Father: he also had to live a life in obedience and settled confidence in our Father.
That very obedience has now been transferred to us. Not simply ‘credited’ to us; but deposited into our new hearts.

The obedience of Jesus is now ours. His life of moment-by-moment trust in the Father fully satisfies God and is fully sufficient for our secured place in him. What’s more, the delight our Father had for Jesus is ours as well. Our unity with the death, resurrection, authority … and moment-by-moment life of Jesus leaves us secured and free in the kingdom. There’s no pressure to obey, no fear of lapsing in faith. There is only the shared life of Jesus with his brothers and sisters who are now and forever bound to the freedom and security of his well-lived life.

There’s a line in a Michael Card song that goes,

“And we can’t imagine the freedom we find
from the things we leave behind.”

I’m struck by that challenge: “Trust me to take care of you. Seek first my Way, my Kingdom, and I will provide. You will be o.k.”

After recently leaving a way of thinking about “church” that I’ve known for 41 years, God has been asking, “Will you trust me Jim? Will you leave behind things that have given you security and meaning so that you can have more of me, more of the life you most deeply want?”

We want to tether ourselves to those things that are most familiar to us, because it’s easier to value security than the life of our heart. There’s part of me that wants to return to the familiar, even if it costs me my heart. But in moment’s of clarity, where my heart’s not pinned down with fear, freedom takes over and declares, “No! That’s not what I most deeply want. God can be trusted with my journey.”

Thank you for the mercy of disruption, God; for the better promises in things left behind.
(lyrics from Michael Card, “Things We Leave Behind” - Poiema CD)

Within the last month, I’ve lost a significant source of income, left a meaningful opportunity for using my gifts, and uprooted my family from a way of life we’ve known for over 40 years. My wife and I chose this because we knew God had more for us. However, I am now in an in-between state of apprehension and loss. I’m asking, “When will God bring about the community we long for? Will He restore my sense of purpose and the opportunity to once again use my gifts in a way that matters? Will he bring each member of my family the life we ache for?”

In my utter frustration with God, I’ve raged, sunk into depression, and had great difficulty hearing anything from Him. My heart itself felt sick: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Prov. 13:12)

God, however, has offered me some perspective. While still holding to a more complete fulfillment of my heart’s desires, I’ve also begun to pray: “What are you giving me now? God, help me to better receive from you. Surprise me. What are the gifts You want to give this day?”

When hope seems distant, the assumption I too often make is that my desires simply aren’t that important to God, particularly when hope faulters or circumstances aren’t going well. It’s too easy to allow trust to disintegrate into a posture of futility: “Why bother hoping? Why trust that my heart matters? Perhaps God really is the ‘hard man’ the parable of the talents speaks of.”

A second, and equally poor assumption, is that God is not at work, or will only provide something in the remote future, if at all; and that any good gift is distant and tenuous. A better and more hopeful assumption is: “God, what do you have for me now? What do you long to give me this moment? Today?” This better assumption believes that God is always giving.

God is always giving.