Growing in Grace

"Come closer, closer to me. 
Find me broken, find me bleedin' 
cause I need more now than a fairy tale, 
a god who lives in a book. 
I need someone real."

    ~John Mark McMillan

2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

    I remember first time I read through 2 Peter I was very confused by this verse. I understood how someone could grow in knowledge of our Lord and Savior, but how does one grow in grace? The phrase confused me. How do you grow in something that is freely given to you that you do not even deserve? I immediately researched what other biblical scholars thought Peter meant when he gave this final exhortation in his letter, and the conclusion I came to after completing my research is that the verse refers to the process of sanctification. We grow in grace by learning more about who Jesus is, by living like Jesus did, by allowing the Holy Spirit to cleanse us of our former sins and idols, and by understanding that all of this is a gift from God for the glory of God. The end of result of growing in grace is sanctification and glorification of God that creates both a thankful Christian, and a well pleased Father. I have not posted on this blog in over three years because needless to say the past three years have been quite tumultuous, so below I am going to share part of my testimony from the past three years that reflects my struggle with sanctification for the glory of God our Savior in hopes that you will pray for me and learn with me. (Be warned this will probably be a long a read, but I do strongly encourage you to read all of it. God has taught me a lot about bringing glory and fame to His name in the past three years.)

    I decided to write this blog, and to preface it with John Mark McMillan lyrics, because recently I started reading through the story of David. Immediately I saw a lot of parallels between David bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, and how we should receive Jesus in to our lives. David sets out to bring the ark to Jerusalem with a mighty army of God, but he decides to transport the ark back to Jerusalem in an unconventional and ceremonially unlawful manner. As David and his men are bringing the ark back to Jerusalem, the ark slips off of the cart and Uzzah touches it as it falls and dies. David is immediately to fearful to bring the ark all the way to Jerusalem, so he decides to leave it outside the city at the house of Obed-edom. After hearing about how the ark had blessed the household of Obed-odom, David decides to finally bring the ark all the way home to Jerusalem in a triumphant ceremony of thanksgiving. 

    I see this story as a microcosm of how we tend to live our lives with Jesus, and more specifically how I have attempted to live my life with Jesus. We set out with gusto to please and serve Jesus, but God then does something that frightens us and we run scared; only to later be comforted by the fact that God is not only perfectly holy and just, but he is also long-suffering, gracious, and loving. After this revelation, we turn back to God with a thankful and cheerful heart. 

    In the story of David and the ark this process occurs in a matter of months. I have seen this process stretch out in my life over the course of several years, and I think I can say confidently that I am not the only one who has experienced long painful gaps of not understanding how to pursue the will of God biblically. I think this story teaches us three very powerful lessons. 

1) Even in all of our zeal and excitement we need to make sure to study the word of God and learn how to biblically worship God in spirit and truth.

2) We need to receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit with a healthy understanding of the fear of God

3) We need to receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit with a thankful and cheerful heart

   When we do not follow these three lessons, we pursue God in a haphazard way that can not only endanger our spiritual life, but the spiritual lives of others around us as we saw in the story of David and Uzzah. Following these lessons, this is what makes sanctification, growing in grace, hard. We have to be disciplined enough to understand that growing in grace must always be paired with growing in knowledge of Jesus Christ. We cannot sit idle, and downplay the importance of studying all of Scripture. We make mistakes and we get scared because we see God pour out His wrath and discipline, and we get confused because we forget that God disciplines those whom He loves. Our hearts are so prone to wander we develop spiritual amnesia about the truths of God in no time, and so sanctification without intentional spiritual disciplines becomes an extremely painful and laborious process that doesn't seem to yield any fruit.

    I prefaced this blog entry with the John Mark McMillan song "Closer," because those lyrics are what need to be the cry of our hearts when we are struggling with growing in grace. And trust me, growing in grace will always be painful at times. Look at the life of Jesus and what his journey to the cross led him through. There was plenty of suffering along the way to Golgotha. We need to confess, repent, and humble ourselves before God crying out for Him to come closer to us, and we also need to understand that God loves and responds to contrite spirit and that he never deserts us. God has forgiven us through the death of His son. Forgiveness and grace have been granted to us, but a great cost and we must understand that to truly repent and confess our shortcomings in becoming more like Jesus to God. 

   Finally, we must also understand that God is real. He is not just some vain philosophical concept, a fairy tale, or some storybook character. God is real and active. This brings me to the second half of my blog entry, (I told you this would be long) my testimony of God's faithfulness and the reality of His presence in my life.

2 Timothy 2:11-14 The saying is trustworthy, for:

If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—

for he cannot deny himself.

    The bottom line of the second half of this blog entry is that God is faithful despite our unfaithfulness, and I am writing this to encourage the downtrodden because I have been there, I am writing this to remind the obedient followers of Christ that their spiritual growth is due to God's faithfulness, and finally I am writing this to bring glory to the one true and real God. 

    I cannot help but be reminded of verses like the great commission, Philippians 1:6, and 2 Timothy 2:11-14 when I reflect on the past three years of my life. Jesus promised us that he would be with us always until the end of the age, and Paul reminds that God has promised to complete the work that He has started. God is the author and finisher of our faith, and not us. We run the race with endurance because of what Jesus did for us and the cross, and what the Holy Spirit continues to do for us now. Our future glorification is not about what we have done, but it is about the faithfulness of God. I cannot help but be convinced of this when I look at the past three years of my life, and I see just how much work God has done despite my lack of obedience and faithfulness.

    Like I said earlier I want to give hope to the downtrodden. God works in our lives even when we our unfaithful because he canot deny Himself, and He will make sure that He will have His glory. Our part is learning to respond to that with humility, confession, repentance, and thanksgiving. We worship a mighty creator that loves us beyond compare. He sent His only begotten Son to die for us while we were still dead in our trespasses. He has been faithful to us before any of us were even born by providing a way for us to have fellowship with Him.

   We must learn as Christians to have godly grief as Paul teaches about in 2 Corinthians 7, and we must learn to respond more quickly to that grief and to not sit by absentminded allowing our sin to devour us whole. We have died to our former way of living, and we have no right to freely and willfully sin. We know better, and that is what makes sanctification so hard. We have to understand that we know better, and then act upon that knowledge. Luckily for us slow learners we have a God who is patient with us and makes His glory and presence known despite our shortcomings. 

2 Corinthians 12:19 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

     We must learn to echo and live out these words of Paul. Part of sanctification is coming to grips with our weaknesses and bringing them before God for His glory; because we trust in this promise, that His power is made perfect in our weakness. 

   I want to end this by asking for your prayers, and by encouraging any who might read this to thank God for His thankfulness. We need to learn as a body how to grow in grace better. Too many of us duplicate the mistakes of David because we are not patient enough to study the word of God. Too many of us are not patient enough to continually pray and give thanks to God. Too many of us are to near-sighted to see the faithfulness and the hand of God that has been present throughout our lives, and I include myself in all of those groups. Let us grow in grace together.

   Praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ whose name is above all names, who has blessed us with unequivocal grace and mercy. Let us live lives that honor and glorify Him above our own selfish desires. Jesus come closer to us and let us know that you are real. Amen.

"Son of David, don't pass me by, 
cause I am naked, 
I'm poor and I'm blind."

     ~John Mark McMillan