The Sin of Religious Self-Effort

"If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body you will live." 

Rom 8:13

How do we change?  In the past sixty years, since the publishing of Norman Vincent Peale's The Power of Positive Thinking (1952), Americans have been driven by self-improvement.  We have bought the books, wear the T-shirts, and live the life of self improvement.  Unfortunately, most of us do not think about how this view of human nature impacts our understanding of the message of Christ and the gospel.

What do I mean?  Because of our cultural fascination with self-help, many folks naturally interpret the above quotation from Paul as encouraging us to resolve, with the help of the Spirit, to improve.  In fact, our churches, in particular suburban churches, are filled with people marked by strong character and morality.  These folks also are often career-minded and perfectionists.  For many of us, we have learned and have become proficient at controlling our environment through hard work, focus, and planning.  Many of us are successful at our chosen career or life path because of these traits.

Because of this strength and our success, one of the greatest dangers to our spiritual life lies like a rattle snack coiled and ready to strike at our heart.

Where is the danger in our strength and success?  Our flesh or sinful nature has two sides.  One is open rebellion.  O.K. we have checked this one off as not the problem.  The other is much more dangerous and secretive.  It is religious self-effort.  This is effort that does not depend upon God, but trusts in our own will-power and strength to change us.  

What does this look like?  There are a myriad of examples!!  One I know all too well is how most of us diet.  If we need to lose 5 or even 15 pounds, many of us discipline ourselves, change our exercise problem, eat better, and will/pull ourselves to the finish line.  We are strong, goal-oriented people!  We can do it.

Unfortunately, even if we succeed, most of us look great for the reunion, but then gain back all the weight and more in the next six months!  How are we undone?  

We exercise and eat right.  We read books about diet.  We do well.  Then the Little Debbie snack cake appears in the middle of the afternoon when we are hungry.  We take a bite.  We eat the rest.  It is so good!  The sugar does great things for our attitude.  We now start thinking about food and sweets again.  We might talk the talk with our friends and family, but we are secret eaters!  Then at a barbecue, a vacation, or a buffet we finally throw off the act and eat like we wanted to.  We keep it up.  Eventually we have regained our weight.  We envy those with the strength to keep it up.  

What happened?  When it comes to over-eating, we never dealt with our heart issues.  Why do we over-eat?  Does it give us comfort?  Do we really hate ourselves?  Do we believe we deserve to be unattractive and fat?  Or do we just like food?  Is our eating a good good and balanced desire for God's good gifts?  In other words, we rarely ask ourselves or God why we have these desires.

Deep within us is a very real need to find our core affirmation and love in our relationship with God.  John Calvin tells us that faith was one of the items completely lost in the fall.  I have often found this observation intriguing.  Don't we not all know that God exists and call upon Him in need?  Yes, we do.  The problem is really believing and resting in His love for us.  Such a faith is radically different than calling upon Him in a time of trial.  It is not momentary and fleeting but abiding.  It is based upon repentance of and from our self-effort as well as a faith or trust in the completed work of Christ.  

How do we change the heart?  Ultimately, faith is life-changing because it is heart-changing.  With the flesh, we cannot defeat the flesh.  It will always work behind the scenes to undo us.  The only way to defeat the flesh is to allow the Spirit to deal with our heart.  We cannot deal with our heart on our own!  When our internal desires change, our behavior changes in healthy and good ways.  It truly changes.  We do not have to "keep up  appearances" but we truly want holiness and God's presence.  We find our deepest needs met in the Lord and the sensual sins and the control sins are no longer attractive because they do not satisfy!

Such a faith is receiving Christ's finished work and His love.  It is actively passive before the Lord.  

What does this look like in real life?  I think of Nehemiah.  He was a man of action, but also of faith.  He cried out to God to help him change things.  I can picture him circling the broken walls of Jerusalem talking to God about what needs to be done.  Praying for the grace to find help.  Praying for help in organizing.  Asking for mercy to protect the Jews from their enemies.  The old monastic tradition had a saying of "work and pray."  I ask each of us, do we pray as we labor or do we work and then ask God to bless?

Like losing weight, our will-power and our strength will only get us so far.  God must change our hearts and minds by His grace so that we can love Him and others well.  

"If by the flesh you put to death the misdeeds of the body," will not work.  It might give an appearance of working for awhile, but it does not deal with our heart and soul.  In the end, it will lead to either self-righteousness or guilty failure.

May we depend upon the Lord this day as "By the Spirit" we walk in grace and truth "putting to death the misdeeds of the body."