Fine Line #2: Fear vs. Need Driven Faith
One can grow up in the Christian church a pretty good person. You know the right words, learn the verses, actions and posture. But all this can quickly turn into a religion that is driven by fear which could possibly result in legalistic behavior and thought.
I was that girl who accepted Christ multiple times as a youth. I was involved in every kind of church effort and activity. It was my culture and place of belonging; it eventually came up dry and empty. Feeling the burden of my fear-driven faith, I considered at one point to abandon it all.
But then…
I had gone to winter church camp at Hume Lake in my late teens. The very last chapel had me riveted. The words were not new but my heart was gripped with the gospel truth for the first time. It was as if I had never heard it before. “There is nothing you can to to earn your salvation. It is a gift.”
I stood up in that chapel thinking I was rededicating my life to the Lord; I now wonder if salvation truly settled in that moment at Hume Lake. I’m thinking so.
Prior to that moment, the fruit of my religion felt stunted and dry, lacking life, and yet I was doing good.
The fruit that came after knowing my absolute need of a savior took time, but it grew in, not effortlessly, but fruit that was fresh and long lasting. The fruit of the Spirit does not spoil but has an eternal shelf-life if we guard it.
I can’t take credit for the growth in Christ as I would have never entered into labor intensive, painful pruning on my own will; but I would not have it any other way.
Mathew Henry’s comment on John 4 regarding Christ’s encounter with the woman at the well reminded me of myself when I was thirsty. In John 4, Christ asks the woman for a drink. She questions Christ, a Jew and a Samaritan with so much historical tension and hostility between them, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Matthew Henry shares this on that passage:
Jesus Christ is the gift of God, the richest token of God’s love to us, and the richest treasure of all good for us; a gift, not a debt which we could demand from God; not a loan, which he will demand from us again, but a gift, a free gift.
I must confess that I have not been putting Christ at the center of all my Christmas traditions, and I’m OK with that. It is a beautiful season in our culture to celebrate the birth, but what runs deeper is the salvation of Christ and our relationship with him that is every single day of the year; that is the real gift!
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