“Self-righteousness
is why we are content with superficial Christianity. Convinced we are okay, we
do not long for the daily rescue of grace.”
~Paul David Tripp
Distance is a mysteriously
abstract concept so far as our relationships with God are concerned. We can be
far away from the Lord, exemplified in our self-righteousness, when we persist
in our complaints, but we’re potentially ever so close.
Repentance is the key. It always
has been and always will be.
I can think of times recently,
having become deluded in fleeting concepts of self-grandeur that somehow
afforded me privilege that the Lord had not acquired for me, where I had
floated seemingly beyond Divine reach. But the Lord is never far away.
Having usurped roles and positions
and the higher ground, I had quickly found myself cowering on the lower ground.
How far had I fallen? I was quickly deceived, again, by my woe-is-me attitude.
And doesn’t the self-righteous mood facilitate deception smoothly? It falls into
deception’s hands without a care of suspicion and it is carried there.
Somehow, so far away, I began to
feel ashamed—unworthy of God. Then, a miracle. A thought entered my mind: I am never worthy, but
Jesus is! By Jesus I am made worthy. Grace is sufficient
for me. It is sufficient for every single one.
Falling Into The Arms Of Grace
Grace is only accessible, by the
fashion of human experience, when we claw our way beyond our self-righteousness
and find scope for freedom by the rescue of grace.
Having forfeited the right of
self-satisfaction from the hollow anti-spiritual conquest, we go on with God.
And the Divine is found ever so close. We felt far away, alone, though
sublimely comfortable for a time. When we noticed how far away we were it came
as a surprise. How did it come to be like this? How did I come to be deceived?
When we come from unsafe tenures
of the heart, whereby the deceptions of the world or the flesh or the enemy
contrive, we really do need a safe place to land. Grace is that place.
The place of grace receives us
without an iota of condemnation. Where our self-righteousness compelled us,
ironically, to eventual self-condemnation, now this place of grace insists
we’re freed. Nothing feels better.
We most need forgiveness when
we’ve strayed from God, however fleetingly.
We can be far away from the Lord,
but by grace we are ever so close. If we feel far off, right now, by grace we
pray, and by grace we come close.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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