Questions for the Heart

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

--C.S. Lewis

     I was working through Tim Keller's Galatians study when a member of my CORE group gave me some extremely hard questions to answer.  I would like to share those with you.  We were working through study 5 which is Galatians 3:1-14

Galatians 3

Faith or Works of the Law

 ¹ You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ² I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? ³Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? ⁴ Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? ⁵ So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? ⁶ So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

 ⁷ Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. ⁸ Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” ⁹ So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

 ¹⁰ For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” ¹¹ Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” ¹² The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” ¹⁴ He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

One of the things Keller stresses is that Paul is warning the Galatian Christians that it is easy to fall back into works-righteousness as we try to overcome sin and live the Christian life. However, instead of dealing with sin through human attainment and what we can do, we must deal with sin through believing in the gospel. This reminds me of something Louie Giglio mentioned. He says he defines Grace as God at work. It is God at work instead of me at work. Because, if were me at work then it would be pathetic and useless. I think that ties in quite well with this concept of being in tension between our quest for human attainment and our knowledge that it’s really only through believing in the gospel that we might be saved.

Richard Lovelace says that, "A conscience which is not fully enlightened both to the seriousness of its condition before God, and to the grandeur of God's provision of redemption, will inevitably fall prey to anxiety, pride, [and] sensuality...So we start each day with our personal security resting not on...the sacrifice of Christ but on our present feelings or recent achievements…”

All those quotes are there to illustrate the point that I hear often stressed at Perimeter. The importance is at the heart of the issue.  Ground breaking isn't it? Sarcasm aside it's true. The first thing that has to be examined within myself when it comes to acknowledging self-righteousness and our habit of limiting the cross is the heart.  What is at the heart of this behavior?  What is the real reason for doing this?  This is where Dee's questions come in.  It has to be asked, "where is your heart?" Where is it? It might not be where you left it, or even where you could be.

Number three is always convicting for me personally. As a young adult it is very easy to have several definitions of the "who am I?" question. The essential point is that to maintain that relationship with Jesus you have to continue prodding at these questions. You have to keep poking in order to make sure you do not become a Missing Person.

 A lot of this brings us back to the idea that many of problems would be solved if we could only keep before our eyes the significance of the cross. “Luther says that if you look to your moral performance as the basis of your relationship with God, then you are breaking the first commandment: 'have no other Gods before me.' If you fail to grasp and believe the gospel of free justification through Christ's work you violate the 1st commandment"(Keller). We will not break commandments 2-10 if we could just keep the first. Every sin is rooted in lust for something, which comes because we trust in that thing rather than Christ for salvation.  Therefore our problems come when we forget the significance of the cross.