SOAP Notes

A semi-regular Tuesday night tradition: more SOAP Notes.

November 6, 2007
Job 30; Psalms 120; Galatians 3 & 4

S: Galatians 3:3
Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

O: The discussion is directed at people who were saved by the Spirit yet still overly-focused on attaining perfect adearance to the law. It points out a regression in the people who had previously so strongly encountered God by stepping away from human understanding.

A: My walk with Christ has been an amazing testament to the fact that mere repetition does not necessarily lead to growth. I often think that when I first became a Christian, back in 2nd grade, I had a more complete understanding of Christianity, and a life more reflective of such understanding, than I do today. Indeed, I don’t just think it, I know it. Back then, my life with Christ was about learning how He related to me. The only “works” aspect that I thought was necessary was learning memory verses (something I’ve never been good about), which indeed was always directed towards building a relationship, as opposed to being a “follow-the-rules and grow-by-works” sort of thing. Over time, I became more concerned with walking my faith, which was fine. Except, somewhere along the line, the walk became a matter of my effort and my strength as opposed to what it was supposed to be. My focus came away from God and growing my spirit. The focus moved towards acting the part and working under my own power.

Many times in my life I have moved back to the truth. Our faith is one of relationship. Our God is not about draconian rules and ruthless authority, but instead is about love. As Peter notes later in the Bible, our God freed us from the power of sin, which is to say He freed us from the condemnation that flows from our persistent and habitual inability to live up to the standards of the law.

We have to be careful, of course, to live our lives in moderation. A life entirely focused on the Spirit loses its effectiveness in the world. A life focused too much on the world loses its spiritual satisfaction. The same goes for our Christianity in the sense that focusing on forgiveness to the exclusion of obedience leads us to dangerous and wanton sin, which reinforces so much the idea that so many have of us Christians having a double-standard. Focusing on obedience and toeing the line causes us to lose sight of God’s mercy, and ultimately to lose the grace we are to extend to eachother. This, of course, leads to the reinforcement of the other stereotype, the Christian bible-thumper full of hell and brimstone and lacking in love.

In the end, so much depends on our understanding that our Christianity is not a matter of us efforting our way into a special status. It’s about us receiving freely from that which we have all been given, if we choose to, and living a life that reflects that (as opposed to thinking our life causes it). The attainment of this understanding is a challenge I often fail, and until I internalize this truth into my heart and from my head I’ll continue to stub my toe on the same block, again and again.

P: Lord, help me to understand that it’s not about me. So much of what is wrong in my life is about how I look at the world: me first, me at the center, me in charge. I know I am to love myself, but I know more important is that I love You and Your love for me. Help me to stop my striving to “be more Christian,” and help me instead to simply become a better friend to You. Amen.