September/October 2001
Your Best Behavior?
by J. Michael Feazell
| Have you ever noticed that if you behave decently for a day or two, you begin to feel like you are a pretty good person after all? |
Why is it so hard to trust God to forgive us and to make us his perfectly righteous children in Christ? Perhaps one reason is because we can't stand to think of ourselves, or that others might think of us as, bald-faced sinners. We prefer the facade of pretending to be good, decent folks. But we are not good, decent folks. Nobody is good, decent folks. At best, we are less destructive and wicked than we could be if we didn't keep ourselves reigned in.
Have you ever noticed that if you behave decently for a day or two, you begin to feel like you are a pretty good person after all? And conversely, if your natural self gets loose for a few minutes and you behave like the ratbag you are, then you feel depressed, disappointed and frustrated that you are not as grand as you had been imagining.
The reason we need a Savior is because we need saving. The gospel declares that God has indeed saved us through Jesus Christ. In fact, Christ died for us ungodly people while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8). And please don't start the lecture that we were sinners, but now we are not to be sinners anymore. Let's drop the rhetoric. We are sinners. We do still sin after conversion. Every Christian who ever lived continues to sin after conversion. That doesn't make sin OK. It doesn't condone sin. It is simply a fact, and one we would all do much better to just admit and quit pretending that if we try hard enough we will become sinless.
What must we do about sin? We must trust God to forgive our sins. We must trust him! He is our only hope. We are sinners, and unless God forgives our sins, we come under the condemnation all sinners deserve. We are not going to stop sinning. I'm sure you have tried, like I have, and discovered that despite occasional bouts of improvement, sin is still alive and well in our lives. But God says that if we trust him, he takes care of our sins and he counts us righteous in Christ who, for our sakes, became the perfect, sinless human.
The Bible is not a book of rules for a new and improved religion. It is the Word of God, God's chosen revelation of himself to us, declaring to us that in Jesus Christ he has dealt with the sins of the world so that whoever trusts him will be saved. That is good news. It is the gospel. It is not religion. Don't be afraid of it.
"God, be merciful to me, a sinner," cried the tax collector. "Change my heart, O God," cried the psalmist. We are overcomers in Christ alone; there is no other way to be an overcomer.
When you trust Christ to be your righteousness, your behavior will improve, and it will happen without your having to constantly set overcoming goals for yourself. But if you try to improve your behavior without trusting Christ to be your only righteousness, you may or may not be successful, and your success or lack of it won't make a hill of beans of difference in terms of your standing with God.
Here's a gospel tip: be honest with yourself and with God about your behavior, but don't make behaving better your main goal in life. If you do, you'll either be frustrated, disappointed in yourself and miserable, or a judgmental and obnoxious prig, or both. You are welcome to that if you want it, of course. But will-powering yourself into a better you is a lousy life goal.
Instead, make your main goal in life knowing and trusting in the Lord your God for absolutely everything, including your
behavior. When you do that, your preoccupation with yourself and how good you are will fade, and your eyes will begin to open to the joy and peace of the kingdom of God. Rest in this: The God who saves you loves you; he's proven it in Christ, and he will make you into what he wants you to be. You can trust him.
-- J. Michael Feazell