I am a preacher, but I'm not a good Christian. In fact I am a very bad Christian. My first instinct is to do my own thing, and my own thing is rarely if ever what God's thing is. I struggle with unbelief. Not that I don't believe in God or the truth of His word. But I have trouble at times believing it for me rather than for you. I don't do a good job of walking in the will of God. Quite often I can't even want to. But there are some who know me who would say that I am indeed a good Christian. They are wrong.
There are even some who despite knowing my past mistakes and failures would say that I am, when all is said and done, a good man, or at least more good than bad. They are wrong as well. I am not good, but over the past several years I have been able to live in such a way that people often see me as good or at least decent, as a light in the darkness, a good Christian, and a good husband, So what is the deal? Are they all grading on a serious curve, or failing to see through some disguise and pretense on my part? No. There is no grading curve on our actions, and I simply do not have the skill or energy to act against my nature often enough to make people believe it, especially my wife who I spend almost all my free time with.
No it's not about my being good and not realizing it or about being a good actor. It's grace. The grace of God is more powerful than even my broken human nature. Grace is not the freedom to be yourself. It's not the freedom to be you in all your selfish glory. It's the freedom and power to be the you that you can't even pretend to be very long, the you that you were created to be, the you that you wish you were. It's the power to love instead of being selfish, to chose God's will over your own, to do what's right instead of what's wrong. It's the power to defeat the idea that we've always been this way and therefore always will be, whatever "this way" is.
Today I can be what I am not and never could be on my own. I can be and act like a child of God, I can be a loving and unselfish husband, I can be a good man who believes the truths of God are for all of us, even me. But it's not me. It's Christ in me. And I'm telling you that on my own I am not, never have been, never will be any of those things. I am hedonistic, narcissistic, self junkie. If the grace of God is powerful enough to set someone as messed up as me free from the bondage of self, then imagine what it can do for you. And the beauty of it all is you don't have to do anything other than give up the fight. Surrender. It's that easy. Ok, it's that hard, but it sure beats hating what you see in the mirror of your soul when it all gets quiet and dark.
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