Lay it Down by Bill Tell

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

Excellence – a Behavior or a Life?

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excellence-sign-up-arrow-large-white-green-road-word-blue-sky-clouds-35250771 (2)As believers, we have not been called to a way of behaving but to a way of living. There is a HUGE difference. It takes will-power to modify my behavior. It took a miracle to change how I live.

I can feel the intensity when Jesus (Mt 23:23-27) rebukes the Pharisees and calls them hypocrites for having only an outward excellence that did not originate from a transformed inner being. “For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful…but within are full of uncleanness.” They had rules galore to excellentize (new word!) their external behavior. But rules and all the effort I can muster can’t go inside me to where consistency begins and hypocrisy is ended.

rules

Judith Hougen in her book Transformed into Fire describes our experience when we, like the Pharisees, focus on excellent behavior; “…you are dedicated to following religious codes but, for all your performance, have only tasted the steel rigidity of rules, not the abundance that Jesus promised.”

Jesus promised a new way of living. We have been united with Jesus so that “we…might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). That is why he continually invites us to stop leading ourselves (Luke 9:23 – “deny yourself”) and follow Him into an excellent life. Into a transformed life where we stop tasting the rigidity of rules but taste the freedom of the very presence of God.

Question:  What is a next step you can take to experience the excellence of the “newness of life” that is yours? Leave a comment so we can be in this together.

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Effect Number Two – Romans 8:1

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Sorry for the two week delay – but that is an unintended effect of a kidney stone!! Ouch!

Remember – we are looking at the effects of God imputing His righteousness to us…the effects of our relationship being based on the life and death of Christ and not on our performance. The first effect was that our sin never separates us from God again as it is no longer the basis of our relationship.

Now the second effect is this – because God sees Christ’s punishment on the cross as our punishment, we are free from condemnation. Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Will you and I still sin? Absolutely, we still have our flesh. Do we feel guilty when we sin? You bet! Does our guilt condemn us? NO! Never again do we need to feel condemned when we sin. If we still feel condemned because of our sin and guilt, we are imagining something that is not true. If in reality we are still condemned then the sacrifice of Christ on cross did not work…but it did work and so there is not even a grain of condemnation left for us. What incredible freedom this gives us in the presence of God.

Can I trust my heart?

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The first verse I memorized once I finished The Navigators’ Topical Memory System during my sophomore year of college was Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” I don’t remember why I memorized it and I wish I never did because for the next thirty years I used that verse as a template for understanding my heart! For thirty years I distrusted my heart and would not listen to it…after all it could not be trusted. It was deceitful and misleading.

Now I know better. Jeremiah 17:9 does not describe the heart of a believer. It does not describe my heart. When I trusted Christ I was given a new and transformed heart. Romans 6:17 (ESV) describes it as a heart that can and wants to obey. Ephesians 4:23 describes my new nature as “created after the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness.” This is why being out from under the law and being released from the law does not result in me running wild and sinning more. I have a heart that does not want to do that…can’t imagine doing that. I do not have to be afraid of the freedom that Christ set me free for!