Tag: faithfulness

DAILY PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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For Fruit of the Spirit: Faithfulness

Holy Spirit,
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. As I look at this list and I look at Jesus, I see a perfect match – a Savior who displayed this fruit flawlessly. He was faithful and full of faith, carrying out his Father’s will without fail.

You promise that all who are faithful to the point of death will receive the crown of life – but who could be up to such a task on his own? We routinely waffle and waver in our own faith! Without Jesus’ perfect obedience on our behalf, eternal life would always be out of reach. Through faith in him, however, we have nothing to fear.

As I surround myself with your Word and Sacrament, fill me up as only you can so that I, too, am both faithful and full of faith. Guide me to be a man of my word, to do what I say I am going to do, and to follow through with my commitments. Keep me diligent in the home and in the workplace, and keep my faith always anchored in you.

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

A Time for Faithful Service

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(Matthew 25:14-30)

What do you think of the master in the parable? What impression of him are you left with after reading or hearing Jesus’ story? Is he the kind of guy you respect, the kind you could see yourself wanting to spend time with, perhaps getting to know him a bit over a cup of coffee? Or does he rub you the wrong way in how he comes across in the parable? Is he a little too uptight and overly focused on the financials? Do you see him being concerned more about profit than he is about people?

Since the master in the parable represents the Lord, let’s just cut right to the chase and be a little more direct: what do you think about God? What is your view of him? How do you personally see God? When you pray to him, what is the image in your mind of God as you are speaking to him? When you call to mind the promises he speaks to you, what does he look like to you as you are hearing him speak those promises to you? What feelings do thoughts of God evoke in you? How do you describe what he means to you when you’re talking about him with others?

What you make of the Master matters. Why? Because what you make of the Master determines your service to him.

Think about your current job and all of the past jobs you’ve ever held. Didn’t the way you felt about your manager or boss impact your work? If you thought the world of your boss, then you also didn’t think twice about making sure you always did your best and even went above and beyond. But if you couldn’t stand your boss, you were less concerned about wowing anyone with your work and just cared about completing the bare minimum required to keep him off your back. The way we feel about our boss has bearing on the work we do. 

What you make of the Master matters. How you see God impacts how you serve him. If you view him as the third servant did, then what you do with the talents he entrusted to you will be tainted. Fear or guilt will either lead to begrudging toil or burying talents. Either way, it won’t produce the kind of return that God the Giver desires.

So then, how do you view God? Is it possible that you… resent him? Do you hold any sense of spite toward God because you reason that he finds some twisted joy in punishing wrong-doers? If so, where might that perception possibly come from? Might it be driven by our own guilty conscience? Could such a view of God stem from our awareness of our own shameful sins, which at times we carry out so casually? Do we attempt to make God the bad guy for punishing the sins we want to commit, imagining we can somehow shift the blame onto him? Is that how you see him?

Do you perhaps view God as the hard Master who demands far too much of you? Does he place impossible expectations on you? Do you think of him as distant and far off, like the man in the parable going on the journey? Is he out of touch? Do you suppose he cares only about results while being disinterested in you personally? 

Friend, if any of those apply, while I don’t know where those perceptions ever came from in the first place, I do know this: you’ve got the wrong guy. Such views of God don’t line up with how God is portrayed in Scripture. Think about it – would the master really have entrusted his personal property to his servants if he did not care about them, trust them, and yes, even love them? After all, he wasn’t passing along his personal property to strangers, but to his own servants.

Know this about the God who desires grace to be his calling card: his delight in you isn’t dependent upon your faithful service to him, but rather his faithful service to you. He called you to faith. He keeps you in faith. His forgiveness – and all the wealth of spiritual blessings that accompany it – are not extended to you on the basis of how faithfully you manage what he gives you; his forgiveness is extended to you on the basis of how faithfully his Son served by obediently carrying out everything necessary for your salvation. His faithfulness was flawless. That is your Master.

But your Master is even more! He’s also the Suffering Servant. Jesus not only explained the wicked servant’s sentence; he also experienced it. “And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (v.30). Jesus was the one who was thrown into the darkness of hell. Jesus was the one who experienced the weeping and gnashing of teeth in the place of eternal separation from his Father. Though his obedient service was flawlessly faithful, he suffered the punishment of the wicked, lazy servant. He suffered our punishment. The Master and Suffering Servant are one and the same – our Substitute and Savior.

Two of the three servants clearly viewed him that right way. We can tell by the quality of their service to him. They set out to put to work what the Master had entrusted to them and their efforts yielded a very nice return – who wouldn’t take a 100% return on any investment? They had faithfully utilized what had been given them, and the Master was delighted, showering them not only with praise, but also entrusting them with greater responsibility. “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’” (v.23). 

Then there was the third servant. He chose to manage what had been given to him differently. Rather than put it to work, he was concerned about losing it and facing his Master’s wrath. 

He was playing not to lose. You know when that expression is typically used of a team in any sporting event? It’s most often directed at a team that either is losing or has just lost, because rather than focusing on putting in the work to score more points to either take the lead or keep the lead, they were more focused only on keeping the other team from scoring. It rarely works out well for the team that finds itself playing not to lose. 

It didn’t work out well for the third servant, either. And the Master wasn’t buying his excuses. He didn’t hold back in calling him out bluntly. “His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest’” (v.26-27). So while the servant supposed his misguided view of the Master would let him off the hook, it did the very opposite. His Master pointed out that if that truly was how he saw him, then he had even less reason to bury his talent and more reason to put the talent to work in an effort to avoid the Master’s wrath!

As we consider this parable in this time in between Jesus’ first and second coming, it is obvious to us that Jesus would have us live not like the third servant, but like the first two servants. So what does the faithful servant look like today?

Assuming we long to please the Master as the faithful servants did, what is required of us? Sometimes this parable has been used to highlight that God gifts us differently. We notice that he didn’t give the same talents to each of the servants. This is true. We do have different gifts and abilities from God. Some can organize and coordinate. Others have musical gifts. Some build and fix with their hands, some find joy in serving and/or cleaning up. The list goes on and the point is stressed that whichever unique gifts we have been given, we are to put them to use faithfully and not bury them. This application definitely has its place as we understand how God has uniquely gifted us.

But it isn’t the only way to consider the faithful service God calls us to carry out. It might also be helpful for us to think of the talents/bags of gold in terms of the responsibilities we have in our lives. Since we have numerous responsibilities across the board in our lives, whatever those responsibilities may be, God expects us to be faithful in carrying them out.

You have a job – do it well with all the strength and ability God provides. You have a house and a vehicle – take good care of them it and maintain them well. You have volunteered your time for this or that cause – follow through with your commitments and see them to completion. You have a spouse to love and serve – do so sacrificially. You are single – use it to your advantage to serve the Lord in that season of life. You have children – raise them to be grace-filled, Jesus-loving Christians who embrace the privilege of serving in Christ’s kingdom. You have neighbors – befriend and help them whenever possible. And we all share responsibilities to the poor, the hungry, the homeless, those treated unjustly, and so on. Some of us have more responsibilities than others, just as the servants had different amounts of talents. Whatever those responsibilities are, faithful service means we don’t avoid them, we don’t wait for others to carry them out for us, we don’t neglect them, and we don’t carry them out half-heartedly. 

No, because we know the Master, and what we make of the Master matters. It makes our heart sing to do a job well for him. It delights us to delight him. It fills us with joy to know that every single responsibility we have is an opportunity for us to worship him with our whole lives, to give him our best as he did for us. We think so highly of the Master who thought so highly of us as to give us the greatest gift possible in Jesus. 

What a wonder that our Master should respond to our faithfulness as he does, and that we are both the source of his happiness as well as the ones with whom he wishes to share his happiness. Your faithful service makes the Master happy. Doesn’t it make you happy to know that? Go then and put smiles on God’s face with your faithful service. 

His Faithfulness Crushes Self-Security

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(1 Corinthians 10:1-13)

If you have a driver’s license, you’ve experienced it. You catch a glimpse in your rearview mirror of a car accelerating rapidly. As it gets closer, you realize it’s a police car and you start to get nervous, realizing you were going over the speed limit. You tense up, hoping he doesn’t pull up behind you, ride your bumper, and turn on his lights to pull you over.

But suddenly he simply zips by you and you are flooded with relief. What do you do next? Do you slow down, vowing never to exceed the speed limit again because you’re grateful you got away with it that time? Or… do you maintain the same speed – or even speed up! – because you reason that you’ll be in good shape just as long as you stay behind the police car?!? 

We do something similar at work when we’re taking an extended break or a longer-than-allowed lunch. The boss or manager comes along and we panic… until they continue along without a rebuke or a write-up – or they even sit down and join us! After that, do you vow to never do it again, or do you reason that it must be permissible since you didn’t get in trouble? 

Children draw the same conclusion when mom or dad don’t enforce the rules. If they aren’t enforced, then it must be OK to break them, they figure.

Today, though, Paul wants to make sure that we don’t approach our relationship with God the same way we tend to handle situations like those just mentioned. He doesn’t want us to mistake God’s patience for permission. Simply because we didn’t get caught or avoided consequences for some wrongdoing does not translate into God being okay with it. 

These thirteen verses from 1 Corinthians 10 almost break down into nice even thirds, with each third serving as a crescendo into a glorious final faith-building chord. First, Paul identifies the source of self-security. Second, he highlights the “success” of self-security. Third, he points to the only solution to self-security. 

Before we dig into those verses a bit more, let’s just focus on the concept of self-security for a moment. When a term like that hits our religious ears, we likely think of those who don’t practice any religion or feel any need whatsoever to do so. They are confident in themselves, self-assured, and certain that in the grand scheme of things, they have nothing to worry about if there does in fact turn out to be a God. They’re pretty good people (at least better than plenty of others…). They are not drawn to be religious because they don’t perceive it as having anything to offer that they don’t already have or can’t figure out on their own. But self-security isn’t just an issue for the non-religious; it’s a danger that needs to be on our radar, too.

Doing the right religious things can also be a source of self-security. That’s when the practice of religion becomes a means to an end; when a relationship with the divine is viewed more as a transactional relationship. I simply deposit my religious acts for the purpose of being able to withdraw security or some other expected favor when I need it. It may simply be that my security comes from the structure and routine of doing the right religious things or having the right religious connections. It might appear externally to look a lot like what the Israelites had. 

Take note of the source of the Israelites’ self-security, to which Paul pointed in the first four verses. There was no doubt about God’s presence in their midst – he made it very visible, from the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night as they traversed the wilderness. There was no doubt about God’s divine hand in parting the waters of the Red Sea as they escaped Egypt. There was no doubt about God’s role in providing the miraculous manna and means by which he satisfied their hunger and thirst in the desert. And there was no doubt that God had appointed Moses as his leader and representative through whom he delivered and prospered his people. There was no doubt that God was with them!

And then in the very next verse, Paul absolutely shatters this rosy perspective of the Israelites’ relationship with the Lord using these words: “Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert” (v.5). You can almost hear the sound of the vinyl record scratching to a screeching halt as these words were read for the first time – what an attention grabber! What a shocking image to cap off what appeared to be shaping up as an “And they lived happily ever after” ending! There was no doubt that God himself was with them, yet the trail of dead bodies strewn about in their rear-view mirror as they made their way to the promised land was evidence that things were not as they seemed! 

Assuming Paul now has our undivided attention, perhaps it’s prudent to assess whether or not we’re looking to the same source of self-security. The Israelites presumed they had all their bases covered. They had God’s right-hand man in Moses leading them, God himself guiding them with his visible presence and making miracles wherever necessary to provide for their needs. 

Where do we presume to have all of our bases covered? What is the source of our own spiritual self-security? Is it found in the emphasis on doctrine and teaching in our Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS)? Is the way that we worship (the “right” way) the source of our self-security, or our nearly spotless church attendance or Bible class attendance record (choose the better of the two, of course)? Is it having graduated from either one of our elementary schools or high schools (bonus points for both!) or having kids who have done so (even if it’s been years since they’ve set foot in God’s house again for worship)? Does the reassurance that a loved one “believes,” provide self-security, without bothering with the finer details of exactly who or what is “believed”? If we look to such things for the source of self-security, then we’re in for the kind of rude awakening the Israelites experienced!

Paul didn’t just leave us hanging after touching on the source of self-security for the Israelites; he also highlighted the grisly examples of the “success” of self-security. Where did their idolatry, sexual immorality, testing God, and grumbling get them? What kind of success did they enjoy from their self-security? One day 23,000 died, another day venomous snakes struck, and still another day a destroying angel took out the complainers. If that’s the kind of “success” that self-security brings, I’ll take a hard pass!

And herein lies the problem: the fact that we don’t experience those sorts of obvious judgments leads us to falsely conclude that our self-security is sufficient! Since I managed to avoid the poisonous snakes and the destroying angel, then God must be OK with me, right? I can have it both ways, looking to all the wrong things for self-security, while concluding that my idolatry, sexual immorality, testing God, and complaining clearly get a pass, since God hasn’t judged me. We are lulled into the false sense of security, thinking that we can manage to balance what the Israelites couldn’t – we can have it both ways. God is clearly with us, evidenced by all of our religious acts of righteousness, which provides the assurance he’s not really all that concerned about my idolatry, my sexual immorality, my testing, or my complaining. 

Paul says to wake up and smell the coffee! “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (v.11-12). In the initial examples at the beginning, we see how relaxed we become about breaking the rules if they aren’t enforced. Don’t make the same mistake with God! Just because our sin appears to go along unchecked, sometimes without consequences, do not reason that God is OK with it! Paul warns us to learn from the Israelites’ example! Just as God’s vivid presence in the midst of his people was not an indicator of relaxed expectations of his people, so your consistent Christian obedience does not grease the skids to permit self-serving sin! There is no success to be found in self-security!

So what is the solution? We know the source of self-security and we know the “success” of self-security (or lack thereof!). The real concern, then, is the solution to self-security. That’s what we need to know, because it’s only a matter of time before each of us slips in and out of that same self-security. So how do we solve it?

We don’t, as Paul assures us. God does. The solution is tucked right there in the three words of verse 13: “God is faithful.” God is faithful. While Paul didn’t hesitate to use the example of the Israelite death count in the desert wilderness as a warning, we also know this: Israelites still ended up in the Promised Land! They made it to the land God had promised his people. Not because of their faithfulness – clearly! – but because of God’s faithfulness. Then Israel established itself as a nation in the special land, only to endure far more downs than ups during the time of the kings and ultimately the exile. But even though he was deserted by his people, did God ever desert them in return? No, because God is faithful and keeps his promises.

The manger in Bethlehem was proof that God is faithful. The cross on Calvary was proof that God is faithful. The empty tomb of Joseph of Arimathea was proof that God is faithful. All served as proof of God’s faithfulness then and God’s faithfulness now!

Even when it comes to the temptation to rely on self-security – or any other temptation, for that matter – God doesn’t dismiss the struggle of temptation. He doesn’t deny that it will happen. He simply promises that he is the solution. He is the solution not only to standing up in the face of temptation, but also the solution for when we faceplant in the heat of temptation. 

While God’s faithful patience is not permission – remember the snakes and the destroying angel! – his faithful patience does mean limitless forgiveness and grace. And with that grace and forgiveness comes a resolve, a resiliency, not from ourselves, but from him, to find our security in him alone. He will not fail us – even when we fail in temptation. He will not forget us – even when we forget about him in our seasons of self-security. He will always forgive, for God is faithful. And his faithfulness crushes all self-security every time.

God Calls Me to Manage His Gifts Faithfully

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(2 Corinthians 8:1-15)

I may have lied last Sunday. After touching on the topic of discipleship, we reviewed some of the characteristics of disciples of Jesus – holding to his teachings, loving others, fruit-bearing, and disciple-making, for example. That’s when we got into the challenge of bearing one’s cross. Now if I made the point that cross-bearing was the most challenging aspect of discipleship, I may have to take that back. Cross-bearing may have some competition: giving. 

Have you noticed that none of Paul’s letters start out with, “Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I am writing to you to address the matter of offerings and your giving”? If you have been through the first 15 lessons of our membership class, you may have noticed we didn’t even touch the matter of giving and offerings. That doesn’t come until the second half of the class. If the matter of giving and offerings is so important – and it is extremely important – then why don’t we touch on it sooner?

There is a reason. Well, there are a number of reasons. But, there is one that stands out among all the others. Godly, generous giving is built on a solid foundation of grace, and a solid foundation of grace takes time to build. It isn’t a foundation that is poured in one shot, like the foundation for our storage building north of the school. It is a foundation that is made solid by continuous amounts of grace poured into it over time. So if the topic of Godly, generous giving makes you uncomfortable, leads you to roll your eyes or tune out, be patient – your foundation of grace is still being poured. But please don’t give up – keep pouring more and more grace into it, and eventually your foundation will be sturdy enough to experience the genuine joy of generous giving. 

Paul’s encouragement to the Christians in Corinth demonstrates that growing in the grace of giving requires ongoing attention. In our verses today, he is revisiting the matter of a special offering that was being taken up to support ministry. He concluded his earlier letter to the Corinthians with encouragement and directions on how to proceed with that special offering (cf. 1 Cor. 16). Now, as he reports on the status of that offering here in 2 Corinthians, he cheers on the Corinthians with more grace to equip them to finish what they had started. He is reminding them of their calling to manage God’s gifts faithfully. As he does this, we want to take note of how Paul encourages the Corinthians. 

One way: He points them to other givers, the Macedonian churches. “And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. And they did not do as we had expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will” (v.1-5). Paul held up the cluster of congregations in Macedonia as examples of godly givers. What made them stand out? They overcame an obstacle – a pretty significant one when it comes to giving! – they turned poverty into generosity. They pleaded to participate. They exceeded expectations. 

Turning poverty into generosity would seem to be impossible. It would be, but God is in the business of doing the impossible. If you aren’t familiar with it, there’s a great book you should read that provides examples: it’s called the Bible. Whether providing an abundance of food out of nothing for the Israelites wandering in the desert or miraculously multiplying bread and fish to feed families by the thousands, God can turn poverty into generosity. The Macedonians were examples of this. 

They also pleaded to participate in the offering. If you’ve been around long enough, you know that isn’t natural. When someone approaches me and asks how they can go about directing an offering to this or giving a gift for that, such a request doesn’t come from coercion or law-driven duty; it is rather a reflection of the same attitude present in generous giving, an attitude that realizes that in Jesus Christ we have everything we need and more. That realization compels a person to seek out opportunities to thank God through giving, to express gratitude through giving.

That in turn results in exceeded expectations, just as it did in the Macedonians. If we limit generosity to something that can only apply to the well-off, then we might as well write-off a significant portion of Christ’s church! But the Macedonians are evidence that anyone can exceed expectations when it comes to giving. From a giving standpoint, this is also perhaps easier to understand when we consider that generosity isn’t solely defined by amount, but by attitude. The widow in the temple didn’t give much in terms of amount, but her attitude was more generous than anyone else there – she gave all she had (cf. Luke 21)! Attitude – not merely amount – has as much to do with generosity. Remember that God is the one who enables anyone to manage his gifts faithfully. For that reason, it shouldn’t surprise us at all that Paul used the Macedonians as an example of turning poverty into generosity, pleading to participate, and exceeding expectations. 

How did they achieve all of these? They gave themselves first to the Lord. When we decide not to let greedy hearts govern our giving, but instead give ourselves to the Lord, there is no limit to what he is able to accomplish. In terms of giving, he made the Macedonian churches into a rags-to-riches story, taking their poverty and transforming it into generosity. How does that happen? It’s easy for God to do, for when we give ourselves first to the Lord, he transforms our attitudes, and generosity flows from there in all kinds of amounts. So when we give ourselves to the Lord, perhaps he’s eagerly waiting to make modern-day Macedonians out of us. 

In addition to pointing the Corinthian Christians to other givers, there is a second method of encouragement which Paul uses: he reminds them of their gifts. “But just as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us—see that you also excel in this grace of giving” (v.7). Paul had touched on the matter of spiritual gifts extensively in his first letter, which would lead us to conclude that the congregation had been richly blessed an abundance of such gifts. In that case, not only did Paul encourage them to use their gifts to build each other up, but to continue pursing them and growing in them. In the same way here, then, he parallels the matter of giving with their gifts. “You excel in the area of spiritual gifts,” Paul was saying, “now apply that same pursuit of excellence in the area of giving. Just as God blessed you exceptionally with gifts, so also he can bless you exceptionally in the grace of  giving.” 

Really, in pointing to givers and gifts as encouragement for Godly giving, Paul is appealing to the same underlying ingredient in both examples: he appeals to grace. If you’ve been paying close attention to all of these verses, you’ll see that grace isn’t just one aspect of giving – it’s really woven throughout the whole conversation. Grace is so overflowing in abundance in these verses that you can see it seeping through the cracks of everything Paul writes! Here’s what it sounds like: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (v.9). I don’t need to know what your gross income was on your last tax return was – I already know you are rich! No matter how a shaky stock market affects your investment portfolio – I already know you are rich! Regardless of what your checking or savings accounts say tomorrow or twenty years from tomorrow, I already know you are rich! It doesn’t matter how much – if any – your family member leaves you in the inheritance – I already know you are rich! But here’s the question: do you? Do you know how rich you are when you have everything you need in Jesus Christ? Because when you know that, you will give generously as you manage his gifts faithfully. 

If you’re not there yet, here’s why: even though you might love the idea of grace and think it’s the best thing in the world (it is!), and be absolutely thrilled that grace means you have a place in heaven (it does!), still… you haven’t let grace into your wallet. You haven’t let grace into your purse. It hasn’t yet made its way into your bank accounts and your investment accounts. Because when grace makes its way into those places in our lives, God makes sure that it multiplies into rich generosity. 

Do you notice a common theme here when it comes to this important matter of offerings, of managing his gifts faithfully? God is not a groveler, he’s a giver. God has not, does not, will not, ever come to you begging for money. He doesn’t desperately need your giving to make ends meet. No, God is the one who gives. But as long as you view this spiritual matter of offerings as God taking something from you instead of God giving everything to you, you’ll continue to miss out on experiencing the joy of the grace of giving. You may give, but that’s not the same as enjoying it.

Suppose someone had never experienced the joy of sleeping on a feather pillow. Once the idea of sleeping on feathers had been explained to him, he grabbed a handful of them and placed them beneath his head before going to sleep for the night. After a restless night and a headache in the morning, he was frustrated that he had actually believed that sleeping on feathers would provide him with a good night’s sleep. 

What was his problem? He had not gathered nearly enough feathers! Had he gathered fistful after fistful of feathers and held them together in a bag or a sack, he would have experienced the joy of sleeping on a cloud-like feather pillow! So it should not surprise us that giving for many Christians is not a matter of joy because they cheerlessly give so little. 

Grace, however, changes that. Paul pointed to the Macedonian churches as a prime example. The final question is this: will you let grace make an example of generous giving out of you, too, as you manage his gifts faithfully?

“Habits of His Grace: Faithfulness”

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(Mark 1:12-15)

In his book Atomic Habits, author James Clear describes habits as the compound interest of self-improvement. In other words, more often than not, the big changes in life aren’t actually big changes at all, but rather little changes, consistently carried out over time. That is precisely the magic of compound interest – it is nothing more than incremental growth multiplied exponentially over time that builds wealth. 

Of course, for anyone to find this perspective attractive enough to consider implementing any new habits, one monumental assumption is necessary: an individual has to see the value of self-improvement. It may shock or surprise you, but an astounding number of people actually choose to simmer and stew in their current situation, retaining a woe-is-me victim mindset that prefers the narrative of negativity. They can be so committed to holding on to that view that it goes well beyond just the glass is half-empty perspective; they’re convinced that everyone else but them even got a glass in the first place! But, if we embrace that God’s call for us to grow is not optional, then establishing healthy habits is foundational to that growth.

So why has it been so hard for you to establish habits? The answer may very well be found in determining the driving force behind our efforts at establishing habits. What is that? Often times it’s guilt – guilt used positively or guilt used negatively (“I should do this; I shouldn’t do that.”). Ultimately guilt will give up, because guilt is not a sustainable driving force. It is a rather cruel slave-driver. It cares not where one’s heart is, but only about the end result, only about whether or not the action itself being achieved. Guilt is relentless and suffocating.

But Christians realize that we have something else at our disposal, something far more powerful than guilt: we have grace. Grace-motivated habits instead of guilt-induced habits is really what this series is about. And our approach will be different. While we will spend a good amount of time focusing on Jesus and his habits, we need to be crystal clear on why we’re doing so. We are NOT doing so to reduce Jesus to something so insulting as merely an example for us to follow. You don’t need more examples to follow. There are plenty of good ones in the world. The problem isn’t finding examples to follow; the problem is our inability to follow them. And frankly, Jesus came to be far more for you than just an example to follow anyway. 

He came to be your Savior, your Substitute. And to do that, we want to appreciate how he carried out what was necessary to be our Savior: his active obedience and his passive obedience. They aren’t the same thing, but they’re both instrumental to our salvation, and they’re both crucial for helping us establish grace-motivated habits.

What do we mean by Jesus’ passive obedience? This is the work of Jesus that we most frequently associate with carrying out our salvation. Jesus passively endured the punishment, suffering, and death that were carried out against him. This is not only remarkable because he was innocent and didn’t deserve it, but even more so because as God, he had the power and ability to keep it from happening. Yet he chose not to! He passively allowed others to inflict it all upon him because he was experiencing it as our Substitute, enduring the punishment and judgment that our sins deserved. He passively paid the price so that we wouldn’t have to. 

Less commonly addressed is the importance of Jesus’ active obedience, which refers to his ability to actively maintain holiness in his thoughts, words, and actions throughout his whole life. As a God of justice, the Father’s requirements for a right relationship with him are that sin must be paid for and that 100% round-the-clock perfection be maintained. So if Jesus had only died for our sins, our salvation would be incomplete. We needed a Savior, a Substitute who could also live perfectly for us. Jesus actively resisted all temptation and conducted his entire life with complete perfection. He actively obeyed all of God’s demands. It is his active obedience that will serve as the focus of this series, and the grace flowing from that active obedience that will enable us to pattern our Habits of His Grace.

So let us appreciate the first of our habits of grace: faithfulness. How do we define “faithfulness?” Often times it is used almost interchangeably with “commitment.” Being faithful is viewed as being committed to doing what you said you were going to do. You work at a job faithfully for years. You are faithful in your marriage. To be faithful is to be committed to staying the course. While I don’t think that’s a bad definition or way of understanding it, maybe we’re overcomplicating it a bit. Perhaps a simpler understanding of faithfulness is merely being full of faith. Filled with trust. Full of conviction. Being full of faith not in my own ability to stay the course, but in God’s promise to stay his course in my life.

We see Jesus being full of faith, even when he was virtually empty of the basic necessities of life. “At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him” (Mark 1:12-13). Forty days in the dessert lacking – not being full of, but almost empty of – the things we take for granted. He had no suitcase with several changes of clothes. There was no cooler being pulled behind him to keep food fresh and ready any time he was hungry. No comfy cozy bed in which to sleep and no roof over his head. He was running on empty in just about every way imaginable. 

Except faith. Even without all that he was missing, Jesus was still full of faith, or faithful. When everything else is lost or gone, and faith is all you have, you see that faith is all you really need. Jesus faithfully stood up to each of the devil’s temptations, as the other Gospels record. And Jesus’ faithfulness was not only on display in his ability to keep from falling into the devil’s temptation in the dessert, but also in his faithful preaching, “‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (v.15). Making that even more noteworthy, John had already been imprisoned for proclaiming that message, yet Jesus did not put his message on mute, but proclaimed it faithfully. 

Jesus wasn’t alone in demonstrating this habit of grace, his faithfulness. The Holy Spirit and the Father got it on the action, too! The Holy Spirit faithfully directed Jesus into the dessert in the first place, knowing it was necessary for Jesus to succeed in battle against Satan and his temptation in our place. And when Jesus did succeed, God the Father faithfully sent angels to attend Jesus in his time of need, just as he had promised in Psalm 91:11, “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” See how our faithful Triune God works in perfect harmony with the faithful obedience of the Son!

And what difference does his faithfulness make when it comes to you developing this habit of grace? All the difference in the world! His faithfulness not only fills in the cracks of your unfaithfulness, as if you were almost there but just needed Jesus to finish it up for you! No, it’s his whole record of faithfulness, not yours, or your lack thereof – that already counts toward God! Who of us would feel confident in making a case before God based on our own past faithfulness? Would we like to point to the number of times our actions were more reflective of a person without faith than a person of faith? How about the times that doubt and worry about our situation smothered any sense of faith and trust we ought to have had in God’s promises? Our general lack of commitment, our unfaithfulness just in our relationship with God, which hops all over the place from lukewarm to cold to hot – is that the kind of “faithfulness” we wish God to take note of on our accounts? Let us hope not, for we know what the eternal outcome of such flawed faithfulness would be!

Let Jesus’ faithfulness in the face of temptation in the desert be the source of confidence for the faithfulness God demands. Let the price Jesus paid on the cross be sufficient payment for your unfaithfulness. So you have been freed from the guilt of your unfaithfulness, which has been replaced by the grace of his faithfulness! Do you understand? You have been freed from your own disastrous track record of unfaithfulness and freed for a guilt-free life of becoming more and more faithful, with every ounce of fear of failure having been removed. The Father already has counted the Son’s perfect faithfulness to your account. You aren’t left lacking. You aren’t left in your unfaithfulness. You are faithful, for Jesus was faithful in your stead. 

So be what you are, be faithful, for in doing so, you are merely living up to how God already sees you in Christ. Be full of faith in your commitment to growing and developing your faith. Be full of faith in your marriage. Be full of faith in your friendships and interactions with others. Be full of faith as you let your light shine on social media. Be full of faith and stand out in a faithless world. Be faithful, not because you must, but because you already are in Christ Jesus. 

I don’t know about you, but I get excited about this kind of stuff. You may not consider yourself to be into growth and personal development, but let me challenge you to reconsider. That’s one of the many unique blessed perks of belonging to Jesus – he does the growing in us. The Holy Spirit will see to it that you grow and develop personally – that’s his job. We call it sanctification, or growth in Christian living. It’s who we have been made to be. It’s who we are. It’s how we can faithfully make an eternal difference in a faithless world that concerns itself with what is temporary. Your faithfulness matters. God can use it to make a huge impact! 

How then can you establish this habit of his grace – faithfulness – in your day-to-day life? Don’t overwhelm yourself with all the areas that you could develop this habit and then do nothing. Pick just one area and commit to following through with it faithfully. It might be daily Bible reading. It might be worshipping weekly. It might be giving consistently. It might be scheduling prayer. It might be witnessing intentionally. Be confident that the compound interest of this habit of his grace will not only lead to self-improvement, but will also build up and bless Christ’s Kingdom as well.