Beauty, not Duty

I came across a truly profound quote as I thumbed through Facebook on my iPhone this morning.

“Legalistic remorse says, ‘I broke God’s rules,’ while real repentance says, ‘I broke God’s heart.’” – Tim Keller

The reason I think this is so insightful, is because I think it strikes to the core difference between religiosity and a genuine relationship with God.

And I also think it’s what keeps millions of people alienated from God, and maybe even prevents most Christians from experiencing an indescribable freedom they don’t even know exists.

Here’s an inadequate analogy for what I’m trying to say, but I think you’ll get my point.

Say you’re a high school student trying to do all the right things, obeying all the rules, a member of all the important school clubs, with a perfect attendance for three years straight.

You know the principal there, and you’ve respected him/her for as long as you’ve known them, but have never met or spoken to them directly.

And just as things are going great, you discover there’s a rule – specifically instituted and directed by this principal – that you’ve been unknowingly breaking for quite a while.

To most, this rule isn’t a big deal, but for you, breaking this particular rule has been the very thing that’s given you the extra boost you’ve needed to rise and achieve the academic success you’re enjoying.

Since you are an excellent student, you try very hard not to break this rule – because you simply want to do the right thing – but it’s very difficult because you’ve broken this rule for so long it’s almost become second nature to you.

Each time you catch yourself breaking this rule, you get frustrated with yourself – after all, you’re trying to be a good student, right?

And then you begin to doubt whether or not you’re actually a good student, or worse, you start justifying your actions and perhaps even become perturbed by a principal who would make such a rule that seems almost impossible for you not to break.

But what if that principal was your spouse, or Grandpa for those of you who aren’t married?

Of course, the personal connection alone doesn’t change the fact that the rule exists, or that it’s still nearly impossible for you to completely kick the habit of breaking this rule.

But because there is an actual relationship between you and the “rule maker” your perception of that rule becomes different somehow.

The same thought can/should be applied to obeying God.

I think we can all agree that we ALL fall short of the glory of God.

But we are called to constantly turn away from our sinful nature, and the idea is to sin less and less as we grow and mature.

The problem is I think many people go about this maturation process in the most difficult manner – namely, on their own, by their own willpower, work ethic, etc.

Now, I’m not saying this method can’t or doesn’t work, but it’s extremely difficult for the majority of us.

You see, God doesn’t simply want you and me to be great rule followers (see: Jesus’ interaction with the Pharisees, whom were actually stellar rule/law followers).

He wants a relationship.

He wants us to confide in Him, wants us to trust Him, and most of all, He wants us to rest in Him.

So the point of that great quote above is that if you develop a relationship with Him, the rules may not change, but how we view them does.

As our relationship grows and blossoms, we will still want to do the right thing, but instead of doing it because “it’s right,” we will tend to do the right things because by not doing so harms the One we’re in a relationship with.

So, how’s that easier than simply buckling down and just resolving to do better?

That’s simple.

Because then we are no longer relying on our own strength (which is fraught with human limitations), but instead we’re able to tap into His unending supply of power through the relationship.

This, among many other things, is an eye-opening contrast between religiosity and an authentic, beautiful relationship with God.

Simply put…serving Him out of beauty is infinitely easier and more effective (long term) than serving Him out of duty.

A Story, or a Person?

It’s not every day that you have an eye-opening revelation about yourself, but that’s exactly what happened to me the other night during a Bible study program I’m currently attending.

I recently wrote about how my personal prayer life developed, and that will forever be a central part of my testimony and relationship with God.

The other night at Bible study, however, showed me there is another mega-theme to how I came to experience a “living” Savior.

We were watching a short DVD when the speaker, trying to make a point about learning to listen and obey God, slightly changed the order of words around in a scripture passage.

The passage was from John 14:15, where Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commands.”

The speaker, illustrating his point, read it, “If you keep My commands, you love Me.”

It’s amazing how just changing the order of a couple of words in a sentence can – not so much drastically change the context – but certainly change the way we go about understanding what is being communicated.

That’s when my revelation occurred – kind of like that feeling you have when you finally remember the name that bugged you all day because you couldn’t remember it.

“That’s it!” I blurted out (in my mind of course).

You see, I’ve been asked many times how my life has been able to change so much in the past few years.

And though I could point to a lot of things that have directly affected me during that time, discovering this one thing seemed to instantly put the puzzle together for me.

All the years I had been attending church prior to my “change” were spent only doing the “right things,” but not much had really changed in my heart.

Despite regularly attending church, Wednesday night dinners, Sunday school and volunteering for Vacation Bible School for more than nine years, I was simply going through the motions.

So what happened that could possibly change me so drastically?

One simple quote.

“It’s hard to live FOR God until you learn to live BECAUSE of God.”

The moment I heard this quote and the meaning behind it, I never thought about religion, church, family, friends, others – you name it – the same ever again.

Even though I didn’t grow up in a church-going family, I knew the “story” just like everyone else, “Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins on the cross.”

Although it is truly the greatest story ever told, so many of us only ever allow ourselves to think about it like that…as just a story.

Don’t get me wrong, just the story can inspire us to do great things because of His great teachings about life and love.

Then again, so could Gandhi.

It wasn’t until I stopped focusing on the two-dimensional Jesus (the red words on the thin pages of a thick book) and began meditating on the three-dimensional Jesus with actual skin, bones and hair that He finally became real to me.

We tend to only think about Jesus as the standard picture we’ve all seen hanging in church.

But if we truly let our minds wander in the reality of Him, we can then begin to see Him in a new light.

The Jesus I know sweated when He was hot, shivered with chill bumps when He was cold and felt that weird tingling sensation when His foot fell asleep.

The Jesus I know had an occasional headache, leg cramp and was annoyed by hiccups.

But, most importantly, the Jesus I’ve come to know has helped me understand that I am a sinner, and in order for me to live with Him for eternity He had to suffer and die for me.

Yet, at the same time, He loved me so much He was willing to do whatever it took to do it.

Knowing this brings new meaning to the pain He felt when the Roman soldiers savagely beat Him.

Realizing this allows me to almost sense His eyes wincing as the nails were being driven through His hands and into a splintery wooden cross.

Please understand, my intention here is not to point out gory details to incite some sort of a guilt trip, but instead to simply explain how my life was transformed.

I think most all of us really just want to experience a relationship instead of a religion, and what helped me the most was to let Him saturate my very senses.

And the moment I began seeing Jesus as a real, living and breathing person, that is what really changed me – but from the inside out.

So, with all due respect to the speaker I was listening to the other night, I’ll just stick to the way Jesus put it, “If you love Me, you will keep My commands.”

Because honestly, it is only through my relationship with Him that I no longer even think about “doing the right things” or living a certain way anymore.

Oh, it’s not that I don’t struggle like everyone else from time to time, I still do.

But I will tell you this…I no longer try harder FOR Him.

I simply believe harder BECAUSE of Him.