Lay it Down by Bill Tell

Helping you find freedom by laying down performance-driven Christianity. There is a place for you here. Welcome.

John 14:21 – prescription or description? (55 seconds)

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

“Whoever has my commandments and obeys them, he is the one who love me…” – John 14:21

For years I read this verse wrong. And when we read it wrong it becomes a heavy load. It was for me.
I think most of us learned to read it first as a prescription on how to become one who loves God… “if I obey his commands I will become one who loves God.” In other words, my obedience transforms me. I also learned to read it as the prescription of how to show God I love him. I will prove to Him that I really do love Him by working hard at keeping His commands…and the harder I work at keeping His commands, the more He will see that I love Him and the more pleased He will be with me.

But what if this is not a prescriptive statement but an identity statement? What if because I am one who loves God (my identity), the result is I now have an ability to obey, and I do obey.

If we learn to read John 14:21 this way, it becomes an affirmation of the truth that our obedience is the evidence of what God has already done in us…rather than it being what we do so that He will do something in us.

Why Pleasing God Exhausts Me! (55 seconds)

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

If I make my primary motive to please God (versus trusting God – which pleases Him), I quickly find myself on a treadmill that I cannot get off. I find myself thinking, “what must I do to keep God pleased with me…How do I know when I have done enough…am I giving God my best?…better try harder – after all God’s standard is holiness.” Whenever I make the underlying motive of my life to please God, I am trapped in a life of self-effort. Not only can I not get off the treadmill, I am chained to it. Day and night I try to be good enough so God is pleased. I am trapped and I am living without the good news of the Gospel.

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” If the underlying motive of my life is to trust God, He is pleased with me!

God has already done a miraculous work in us. We have a new nature. I don’t have to, by my relentless hard work and effort, try to become somebody different than who I am so that God will be pleased. But now, by a spirit-empowered effort, I can live out of what He has already done in me and who He has made me to be. The foundation of that effort is trusting that what He has said He has done in me is true. That trust pleases Him.

Doing vs. Trusting (62 seconds)

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

When I was in college, I was taught that one of the questions that I should ask of the Scriptures in my morning quiet time was “Is there something here I need to obey?” This is not all that bad a question unless our motivation is so that we can become righteous through our obedience. We do not obey so that we can become righteous, we obey because we are already righteous (Ephesians 4:24). Paul describes this effort to become righteous by our behavior and effort in Philippians 3:6 as “legalistic righteousness.” This is diametrically opposed to the gospel and Paul goes on to say he has left it behind…”not having a righteousness of my own…but that which is through faith in Christ.” (Philippians 3:9)

Recently I have been pondering a different question in my quiet time – I think a more fundamental question…”What would it look like to trust You today?” As I mentioned last time, it is my trust that pleases God. Somehow this question seems to penetrate a lot deeper into my soul, into my desires and motivations. I think why it penetrates so much more deeply is that it is a relational question.

Rather than just focusing on “is the something I should do today,” – now the focus shifts to “what is my relationship of trust?” Doing what somebody wants is a lot different that trusting that person.