The keeping and the throwing away

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. –John 17:3 (ESV)

There are a couple important components of my faith that I missed early on. The churches I grew up in did not have a good understanding of grace, and they did not emphasize the power of the Holy Spirit in the day-to-day life of the believer. Imagine reading the Galatians 5 passage on the fruit of the Spirit, feeling responsible to produce those qualities by my own power, and believing I would be a failure as a Christian if I was unable to do so. I could sort of do kindness, goodness and faithfulness much of the time, but I knew the score. A young man with a tendency toward lust trying to exercise self-control by sheer willpower was impossible – and very joyless.

For years, I believed my salvation to be mostly performance-based and subject to cancellation at any moment. The result was anxiety, anger, bitterness, judgmentalism, and fatigue. Good works were expected as something I ought to be doing, not as a gift that God empowered me to participate in. I had a lot to learn; before starting on that, I had to un-learn some things. Going back to our car restoration analogy of last week, I suspect many of us may have parts of our spiritual heritage that need to be repaired, replaced, or thrown away.

This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls…” –Jeremiah 6:16a (NIV)

That said, there are parts worth holding on to. I do not fault the people who influenced me in those churches. Most were fine Christian folks, a little uptight perhaps, but generally kind and generous individuals who modeled godliness. I would not have known Jesus if not for dedicated Bible teachers I had then who thought it was important for us knot-heads to hear the stories and internalize the truths found in Scripture. They were doing their best to honor God and to love us, and they used the tools they had at the time the job needed to be done. Same as I did for the generation that came after me. Same as this generation will do for the one coming after them. That’s what we do.

As we examine and dis-assemble our faith, we will likely find that much of the core of what we learned then is still true and right and good. But we sell ourselves short if we fail to continue studying, growing, allowing the Spirit to expand our hearts and minds. The ongoing pursuit of God’s truth, even in the context of imperfect people in imperfect churches, will always be a worthwhile endeavor. I like to think we can go back to that core, discern those parts that were incorrect, incomplete, or misunderstood, and leave those behind while still honoring those who cared enough to make an investment in us.

Next week, we’ll continue our restoration project with some thoughts on replacement parts and potential upgrades. Until then…

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God... –Colossians 1:9-10 (NIV)