Perhaps you’ve wondered at times why you can’t seem to achieve consistency in your Christian walk. Maybe you have experienced highs and lows and have learned over time that your feelings tend to impact your level of commitment. Now that you have journeyed with Jesus Christ for a bit, it is likely that you’ve wished inwardly that you could enjoy a faithful progress without so many stumbles and failures. Well, you are in good company and I want to suggest that the very fact that you desire a more honorable pattern of living is an indicator that God is at work in your life. A behavior consistent with your beliefs is evidence of grace operating within you. Listen to some things that Paul & Peter wrote to those whom they led in the faith. Follow the word “establish” in each verse.
2 Thessalonians 3:3 – “The Lord is faithful. He will establish you…” {ESV}
1 Thess. 3:13 – “So that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father…” {ESV}
2 Thess. 2:16-17 – “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.” {ESV}
1 Peter 5:10 – “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” {ESV}
Each one of these passages let you know that it is God Himself who establishes you in the faith. We want to wake tomorrow and be in the final port of having been fully established in our faith. We want all the right thoughts. We long for perfectly consistent words and behavior. Anointed relationships are what we crave so that we don’t need to apologize so often. If only our emotions were always operating under the Spirit’s control! Yep, we long to be fully sanctified and settled.
Not gonna happen in this life, friend. We are certainly being made more faithful, more consistent, more sanctified, more settled…but the finished product will not be seen until we come face to face with the Potter Himself.
There’s a fine line between hungering for righteousness and despairing of falling short of that eternal standard. You and I have to develop an ongoing confidence that God IS establishing us while we also retain the humility that acknowledges we are not close to “having arrived”. If all you focus on is the grace of God which is clearly working to make you like His Son, you may never feel compelled to “strive for mastery” (2 Tim. 2:5). Yet, if all your heart rests upon your need to engage in the process of spiritual growth to become “better” for Jesus, then you will likely find yourself despairing of not measuring up nor having the power to live the life He intends for you. Let us both learn that God initiates the process, empowers the process and completes the process. Let us also recognize that we commit to the process, yield to His power and obey His commands.
It sounds like God has called you to an unequal partnership in this process of bringing Him glory through your life. He does all of the hardest work. You have been blessed with the privilege of the process. Give it your best and rejoice in the grace that compensates fully for everything you are aware of that is lacking in you…and also everything lacking that you aren’t aware of.