Growing in our Knowledge of Jesus

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,
by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises,
so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature,
having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire."

2 Peter 1: 3-4

There are times when it seems that the scriptures just mock us.  We struggle with the same sins over and over.  We make such horrible messes of our relationships.  On many days, it seems like we can't even get out of our own way. .... and then the bible says,

God has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.  How is this possible?  

Peter tells us that God has given us what we need through the knowledge of him who called us.  In other words, through the grace and mercy and power and love of Jesus.  All that pertain to life and godliness are directly related to growing in the knowledge of our loving Lord.

Knowing Jesus grants us access and assurance us of all the promises of God.  Knowing Jesus changes us from the inside out.  Knowing Jesus transforms our heart.  Knowing Jesus changes our relationship to the world.  

The knowledge of Christ is everything in the Christian life.  

Knowing Jesus comes from a transformed heart.  Knowing Jesus is based upon a life of repentance and a constant confession of faith.  Knowing Jesus, works from the heart outward to transform every aspect of our life.  Such true faith gives us life and godliness.  Such true faith gives power to escape the corruption of this anti-gospel world.

In the midst of struggle, do you know Jesus?

What would this mean in the real world?  It means we repent of our silly and ineffective self-effort.  It means we turn from our well-trodden paths and look upon Jesus alone as our only hope.  It also means that we have faith that Jesus can make the promises real.  He can change our heart, and He can give us power over sin and death.  

On a very practical level, I find myself often praying a well-known prayer.  "Lord, have mercy on me a sinner."  I have found this is a prayer He always answers.

Revival for the Spiritually Dead

"Go and say to this people:

'Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.'

Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy,

and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes,

and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts,

and turn and be healed."

Isa. 6: 9-10

As a pastor, I have served churches in many parts of the United States.  I have also served as a witness for Christ in a 10 week summer mission trip to southeast Asia.  Lord willing, I hope to be a witness for Christ in many other parts of the world in the next 20 years.  In every place I have gone, I have seen people come to know Jesus and others who have been completely hardened to the gospel.

Why is there such a range of response to the gospel?

In the passage above, Isaiah has just seen the Lord, and he has fallen before Him.  The Lord took a burning coal, touched his lips, and made him a vessel ready to bring the Word of the Lord.  In other words, Isaiah just experienced repentance and faith from seeing his true condition before the Holy God and calling out for mercy.  Such a cry the Lord always answers.

After this conversion, Isaiah hears the voice of the Lord asking, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"  Notice the plural "us", which demonstrates the multiple personhood of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  In response to this question, Isaiah says, "Here am I!  Send me."  The above passage is the message the Lord gives Isaiah.

So, why do some believe the message of the gospel and others reject it?  

The human condition apart from God's grace is that of deaf, blind, and hard-hearted to spiritual truth.  As Paul says, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins."  Dead people cannot respond to outside stimuli.  The meaning of "being dead" is that they can not respond.  Once dead, the only way someone can respond again is to be made alive again.  

I know this biblical teaching goes against what so many of us wish to believe.  Yet it is true.  We are dead to our true spiritual situation unless the Lord opens our eyes, unstops our ears, and changes our hearts.  When He does, we turn or repent and we find healing.  

Being spiritually dead does not mean that we do not have a measure of a free will.  

We can love our families and friends.  We can be honest.  We can be generous.  We can have good self-control.  We can even give up drinking or anything else we call a vice.  In other words, we are not robots.  Being created in the image of God gives us great gifts and abilities.

What does it mean to be spiritually dead?

Being spiritual dead means we do not have the gift of faith.  It is now dead; and as a result, we can neither honestly repent before God nor can we place trusting faith in the living God. Such faith is foreign to our fallen human nature.  It is something that makes no sense.  At least it makes no sense unless God's grace changes something within our heart that allows us to freely choose to repent and believe the gospel.

The greatest need for people everyone is God-given revival.

Revival, or "spiritual awakening" is not something that we can bring about by our efforts.  It is not changing someone's morality.  It is not helping them to have a better, more positive outlook.

Revival is God's work in bringing redemption to individuals.  As individuals are transformed, they work to bring God's righteous love and grace to their lives, their surroundings, and the world.

Revival is God's work, God's way.

Why Politics Rarely Changes Things...

"I was asking hard questions: 'How do we make a just society?' 'How do we look at the immorality in our world?'  I had tried to make life better through social reform and psychological reform and educational reform and political reform," he says.  "After I got to a certain point, I began to understand that the undergirding of all of those principles has to be spiritual, not something that Freud said but something spiritual.  So that's when I went to seminary."

Gerald Durley in "Pastor and Activist," Leadership (Summer 2000), 54.

In politics, the law of unintended consequences always wins.

What does this mean?

As a group of people, we seek to solve one problem, and we cause at least two more.  We think we can easily solve these two problems, but now we have four new ones.  Before long, we make an unintended problem that is bigger than any issue we tried to solve.

Why does this happen?

We live in a fallen world while we long for a perfect world.

In other words, the primary problem in this world is a spiritual problem.

I agree with Gerald Durley, who has lived an interesting life as a civil rights activist, a political activist, and a pastor.  At its root, the problem in our country, the problem in every country, the problem with every "system" is its tendency toward decay and ruin by running away from God's ways.  

We should never be surprised when we see injustice and immorality.  It is a mark of a world turned in upon itself and away from God.  As the world system pulls further away from how God made it to be, more injustice and immorality will come to pass.  It will become codified into law.  It will be enforced by the heavy hand of the state.  

What is the answer and cure to all these problems?

Believers of every stripe have taken up the cause of politics, education, psychology and other social answers.  In particular, we have aligned ourselves with political parties, and we live and die mentally and spiritually by who wins elections.  We fight by using political means to change our culture, our educational system, and every other system thinking that the arm of the state can make things right.  Then we are disappointed when every political solution has more harmful unintended consequences than helpful results.

While we are called to pursue God's Kingdom by promoting justice and love, our embrace of politics as  "God's primary means" of changing the world is wrong-headed.

Why?

Humans as individuals and humans collectively are a fallen lot!  Our biggest problem is spiritual.  The more fallen people who get together to create a "system" the greater the possibility of corruption and evil to become the new law.  This goes for our political system, our educational system, and even our local churches.  It is a fact that should not be ignored.  If we choose to ignore it, as our culture does, we do so to our own peril.

As a culture, our system is broken.  I believe no amount of tinkering with the fringes of the system will cure the problem.  In fact, I think because the heart of the system is in rebellion against God, the entire system will only grow worse no matter what political party or powerful group tries to take control.

What is truly our greatest need as a culture?

We need to repent and believe in Jesus Christ as individuals and as people involved in a cultural "system."  Instead of claiming "Bush did it" or "Obama is the problem" we need to confess that selfish pride and independence from God because of unbelief are the real problems in our culture.  

Our system is broken because the heart of the system is bad.

Our biggest problem is spiritual.  I am thankful that none of us as individuals is beyond redemption.  Take hope.

I also think that culture is constantly reinventing itself, so perhaps out of the ashes of our consumeristic Western culture will arise a new culture formed on the anvil of repentance and renewed faith.  But just as "bleeding" or "leeches" were once thought as  the best medical cure but later proved to be false, we need to look to the true cure of our individual and cultural woes.

We are sinners in need of grace.  God's ways and truth should not be ignored but recognized.  We recognize God's ways by repenting our our sin against Him and others and believing in Jesus Christ as our source of forgiveness and power for transformation.  We must live this truth as individuals and pray it through and for our country.

Sailing the Wind of the Spirit

Q. If the spiritual disciplines are a means of transformation, what is the role of the HS?

Transformation is always grace.  We sometimes think that although we're "saved by grace," we're supposed to change by effort.  Either that, or people become passive.

One of the analogies that's kind of been helpful to me is the difference between a motorboat, a raft, and a sailboat.

In a motorboat I'm in charge.  I determine how fast we're going to go, and in what direction.  Some people approach spiritual life in that way.  If I'm just aggressive enough, if I have enough quiet times, I can make transformation happen on my own.  Usually that results in people becoming legalistic, then pride starts to creep in, and things get all messed up.

Some people have been burned by that kind of approach.  So they go to the opposite extreme and will say, "I'm into grace."  It's like they're floating on a raft.  If you ask them to do anything to further their growth, they'll say, "Hey, no.  I'm not into works.  I'm into grace.  You're getting legalistic with me."  So they drift.  There are way too many commands in Scripture for anybody to think that we're called to be passive.

On a sailboat, however, I don't move if it's not for the wind.  My only hope of movement is the wind.  I can't control the wind.  I don't manufacture the wind.  Jesus talks about the Spirit blowing like the wind.  But there is a role for me to play, and part of it has to do with what I need to discern.

A good sailor will discern, Where's the wind at work?  How should I set the sails?  Spiritual formation is like sailing.

Interview with John Ortberg, "Holy Tension," Leadership (Winter 2004), 24.

In my 25 years of being a believer in Christ, I have heard many appeals that demand I grow in maturity.  I have been told by folks directly, and I have felt their unspoken attitude that demands I grow.  I have also been loved well by individuals who encouraged me to grow deeper and in my personal holiness.

The problem is that all to often I have not been told how to do it.

In fact, I think most of what passes for Christian literature 

asks, demands, begs, and encourages folks to grow, 

but it does not provide the means to grow in holiness.

I find this frustrating.  I know many of you do also.  Let me share what I have learned about growing in holiness.  So much of it has been a failure, but God has used it all to help me grow.  Using Ortberg's categories, the following is my story.

The Way of Religious Self-Effort

For years, I followed the motorboat approach.  I think this is what most Christians and what most Christian living books encourage.  "Do not be like the world.  Do not be lukewarm.  Do these seven steps and you will grow."

I did the seven steps about 77 times.  I learned how to read the bible.  I made myself pray.  I engaged in various activities.  Yet, I awoke about 15 years into my Christian journey to find that I did not have the ability to love anyone well.  I had the outer appearance of faith, but I knew my heart was off.  I was a self-righteous pharisee of the worst type.

The Way of Grace

Then I heard about Grace and the Gospel.  It was like being set free from prison.  My soul rejoiced.  I needed healing.  I needed grace and the love of God poured out on my hard heart.  He gave me that grace.

It was amazing how quickly I grew in holiness and maturity.  The grace of God changed my heart.  I was so looking forward to it just continuing forever.  The problem was that God's transforming of  heart did not continue in the same way.

Instead, after a couple of years of healing, I found myself floating in a still current on my raft.  I prayed, Lord give me grace and change me.  Nothing happened.  I waited.  Still nothing- no further growth and no further movement of my soul toward God.

Then I changed my prayers.  "Lord give me wisdom to grow deeper." I cried.  He answered by bringing me back to the gospel of repentance and faith.  

"Actively rest in my grace." the Lord whispered as He invited me aboard the sailboat.

How?

The spiritual disciplines teach us how to listen to the Spirit.  At least when they are correctly used they serve this important function.  The Spirit leads us to humility by promoting repentance of our outward sins and our inward self-effort.  The Spirit calls us to rest in Christ alone for our goodness, power, and life.

The Spirit calls to to actively rest in the work of Christ.  Active in repentance.  Resting in faith.  The Way of Grace is worth all the struggle.

The Sluggard (and it might be us)

"I passed by the field of the sluggard, and by the vineyard of the man lacking sense;

and behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles,

its surface was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down.

When I saw, I reflected upon it; I looked and received instruction.

'A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.'

Then your poverty will come as a robber, and your want like an armed man." 

Pro. 24: 30-34

I love the book of Proverbs.  It is a storehouse of wonderful practical wisdom.  As a book, Proverbs is a book in the OT located just after the Psalms.  It is a very practical book that gives pithy statements of general truth.  In the ancient near eastern cultures, such statements amounted to important cultural intelligence.  To know these proverbs well and to apply them in life illustrated good education.  Solomon was the wisest man in the world because he knew, composed, and passed on these proverbs.

I have met this sluggard Solomon wrote about in Proverbs 24.  I have known him in every church I ever served.  This sluggard, whether a man or a woman, often wants much in life, but they just lack the energy to do anything about it.  It is not like their intentions are wrong or bad.  They merely lack the ability to put any plan into action that will help them achieve their desires.

I have seen the sluggard lose everything.  I have seen people who literally live in homes that are falling apart on a piece of property that is falling apart.  I have also seen folks who desire a better relationship with their spouse or children, yet they spend all their spare time doing nothing but watching sports on TV.  I have witnessed people who eat themselves to poor health and even death because they lack the will-power or desire to begin to exercise and change their eating habits.

I have also closely observed folks who do none of the above, yet have definite sluggard tendencies.  I know first-hand that one can be a sluggard by not following the leading of the Holy Spirit.  I am afraid that all too often, I am that type of sluggard.

How so?  

I have a horrible tendency to put off to tomorrow what I could do today.  Each of us are given 24 hours to live each day.  No one has more time than others.  So why do some of us get more done than others?  They use their time wisely.  As I look back on the first half of my life, I sure have wasted a ton of my God-given time.  I have spend it on amusements, laziness, and non-Kingdom based activities.  I have folded my hands in rest and said to myself, "Tomorrow I will start."

The problem is that tomorrow never comes.

When I was a kid, we had an old bar called the Trading Post where we loved to eat dinner.  It had great food and homemade pies.  It also had a sign outside that said, "Free Beer Tomorrow."  If asked about it, the owner would say, with a sly smile on his face, "Come back tomorrow and all the beer is free."

Tomorrow never comes.

Take the five minutes to start that new project today.  Be in motion for the Kingdom.  Call that friend the Lord lays upon your heart.  Do not put it off!  As you follow the Lord's leading He will give you more strength to face the day.

Our characters are formed by repeated choices.  We can be transformed by God's grace and by asking the Spirit to apply what we hear from the living God.  Ask Him to use you.  You will be amazed what He can do.

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we can ask or think, 

according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory..." 

Ephesians 3: 20-21

Easter's Personal Good News

"Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and 

on the third day rise from the dead,

and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins 

should be proclaimed in his name to all nations."

Luke 24: 46-47

Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!

In Monday's post, I briefly described the objective nature of Christ's victory.  I attempted to describe what this means in light of the scriptures.  Today, I wish to explore what this means for us.

So, Christ has the victory over sin and death.  How does that transform our lives?

Here is where the above passage in Luke is so helpful.  The first half talks of Christ's work.  The second half tells us how to apply what Christ has done.  Christ's objective work is applied by active repentance and faith knowing that in Christ there is the forgiveness of sins.  

Repentance is the means of applying Christ's work.  It is both a confession of sin against God, others, ourself, or creation and a cry for mercy to change.

Why have we made this understanding the means of salvation, but not the means of life?  

First, I think we have accepted and believed a false view of humanity in the West for about 250 years.  The Enlightenment taught that humanity was "sin sick" and not really "sinners in desperate need of grace" who are dead in sin.  As a result of this understanding of humanity, it was taught that proper education will free us from sin (as well as poverty, evil, and everything else).  This understanding was particularly important in America.

What does this mean for Christianity and the Church?  Well, by and large, the church uncritically accepted this view.  Most in America just assumed that the proper education included Jesus and accepting Him as the Lord and Savior of your life.  When you did, you had the proper education to change.  It might take some discipleship and accountability, but you can and should do it.

So what happens when four years later you find yourself struggling with some sin tendencies?  Even worse the same sin tendencies you thought you put aside four years earlier.  Let's say control, anger, or lust?  You could find more accountability.  You could just memorize more scripture.

Or you could just try to change the subject.

What the scripture teaches is that while accountability and scripture memory/knowledge are important, repenting of our real sin is more important.  Do not deny the reality of the struggle, but confess and cry out for mercy to be transformed.  Since we have the forgiveness of sins because of Christ, we can be honest that our struggle has not ended, and it will not end until we die, and we are set from from this body of sin and death.

In other words, we need to wholeheartedly deny our cultural assumption that proper education or knowledge will change our behavior.  It is simply not true.  How many of us know we should eat properly and exercise, and we still do not do it?  Education is not enough.  

No, we need a change of heart.  

Such a change of heart does not happen instantaneously when we accept Jesus, but it is a process marked by continual repentance and faith.  Because our faith is based upon Christ's finished work and the forgiveness found in that work applied by faith, we can confidently face our sin and our incredibly complex and tangled hearts.

As Jesus finishes this brief teaching on the gospel, He tells his disciples, "You are witnesses of these things." (vs. 48)  Remember these disciples had recently abandoned the Lord.  They had doubted His resurrection.  They had fought over who was the greatest.  

"You are witnesses to these things."  How were they restored?  They repented and believed in Christ's love and mercy.  Why was Judas so different?  He was sorry for the consequences of his sin, but he never repented of his sin against God and believed in Christ's mercy.  In other words, the disciples lived and believed the life of continual repentance and faith because they knew first hand they needed it.

Are you witnesses also the amazing grace of God found in Christ?  Are you walking today in continual repentance and faith?  May God's mercy lead us all to this place of joy and freedom.

Easter's Good News

"Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and 

on the third day rise from the dead,

and that repentance and the forgiveness of sins 

should be proclaimed in his name to all nations."

Luke 24: 46-47

Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!

Easter.  The high point of the entire year.  While so many think it is just candy and eggs, as believers we celebrate Jesus' total victory over sin and death.

In the above passage in Luke, we learn that the gospel has two distinct parts.  I will deal with these two elements of the gospel in this and my next post.

The objective work of Christ is the first element of the gospel.  As He "opened their minds to understand the scriptures" (vs. 45), Jesus announces that the OT always taught that the Christ would suffer and die.  The Old Testament was setting up the coming of Jesus.  The revelation of His coming progressively became clearer, but it was there from the first chapters of Genesis.

The real question we should ask is why would Jesus have to suffer and die?  Could not have God just "gotten over it" and forgiven us?  Could not God have "set aside" the standards of justice and righteousness?  Could not God have made it so we could become perfect people who would satisfy His righteousness?

I have heard all of these questions asked many, many times.  They all spring from an honest desire to understand.  The problem is that they are all flawed in their understanding of God's essential character.

The God of the bible is perfect, righteous, holy, and pure.  Thankfully, this revealed God is also loving.  One of the greatest beauties of God is that His love flows out of His holiness.

What does all this mean?

God just is.  He is not created and He does not need us to confirm His character.  He just is.  From His essence comes the foundations of the creation of the world.  These foundations include holiness, righteousness, and the Law, which we know as the difference between right and wrong.  These ideas are not social constructions, but they flow from the character of God.

This means that God can't just set aside righteousness because He is loving.  To do so would be to deny His central character and essence.

Thankfully, God maintained His righteousness and showed his love in sending Jesus.  Jesus' objective and active work of perfect obedience satisfied God's perfect righteous standard.  So, on Easter we celebrate Jesus' finished work.

Throughout his life, and then magnified during the first Holy Week and finished in His death and resurrection, Jesus:

1.) satisfied the holiness of God through His perfect life (Romans 3: 21-26).  

2.) died to pay the penalty of death that our sin deserved (Rom. 5: 6-11).  

3.) defeated the power of sin and death (1 Cor. 15: 54b-57).  

Furthermore, he made it possible that all who place their faith in Him are:

1.) imputed/declared to have Jesus' righteousness as theirs (Romans 5: 15-21), 

2.) given the Holy Spirit to dwell within them as a guarantee 

of His love and grace (Eph 1:13-14).

In other words, we just celebrated the most important event in all history this past weekend.  The Son of God, who is Very God of Very God, willingly died for us.  He then rose from dead to secure victory over sin and death.  He finished fulfilling the active requirements of God's righteousness, and He did so perfectly.

What does this practically mean for us?  Tomorrow I will present the second half of the gospel proclamation in hopes of answering that question.

Freedom!!!!

On this Good Friday, we remember the ultimate sacrifice paid by Jesus to rescue us from sin and death.

On this day, I also celebrate a great phone call from yesterday that announced my freedom.  To which, I give the Braveheart cry,

Freedom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Gospel's Double Cure

"The remedy for our sin, whether scandalous or acceptable, is the gospel in its widest scope.  The gospel is actually a message: here I am using the word gospel as a shorthand expression for the entire work of Christ in His historic life, death, and resurrection for us, and His present work in us through the Holy Spirit.  When I say the gospel in its widest scope, I am referring to the fact that Christ, in His work for us and in us, saves us not only from the penalty of sin, but also from its dominion or reigning power in our lives.  This twofold aspect of Christ's great work is beautifully captured in Augustus Toplady's great hymn "Rock of Ages," with the words,

Let the water and the blood,

From thy riven side which flowed,

Be of sin the double cure,

Cleanse me from its guilt and power."

Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins, 33.

What a wonderful summary of the Gospel's content and action.  Bridges has been writing on this theme for almost thirty years.  In Respectable Sins, he is dealing with those sins that we as Christians often live with as acceptable and normal.

What sins might these be?

He argues that they are the modern expressions of those sins mentioned in scripture such as anxiety and frustration, discontent, unthankfulness, impatience and irritability, judgmentalism, and a lack of self-control. 

What particularly strikes me today is how the gospel is Christ-centered and Christ-focused.  The gospel is secure and powerful because Christ's work was finished and perfected with His resurrection.  There is absolutely nothing we can do to add to His finished work.  He has done it all.  

Yet, how many of us live our Christian life as if His finished work is not enough?

In our mind, we affirm He is the answer, but in our real life, we labor to fix ourselves and our circumstances.  Somehow we have not learned how to appropriate His finished work into our life.

I know some will argue that our labor to fix ourselves and our circumstances flows from "His present work in us through the Holy Spirit."  If we are walking in active repentance and faith, I would agree.  If we constantly remind ourselves of Christ's finished work and claim it as our own, I completely agree.  I just wonder how many of us really live in such dependence?  Why is it so hard to find someone whose life is so marked by such a lifestyle and its resulting grace?

I know all too often my life is marked more by worry and anxiety than repentance, rest, quietness and trust (Isaiah 30:15).  How can I tell?  My inner dialogue runs through my concerns, questions, fears, and doubts more than it turns to constant reflection upon the beauty and grace of Christ.  The irony is that people often tell me that I am marked less with worry and anxiety than most.  Am I just good at hiding it or is worry and anxiety an epidemic among modern folks?

Lord Jesus, have mercy on us for we all struggle so much with worry, self-concern, and sins of the flesh.  Have mercy on us for our unbelief is often our mark.

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,

"In repentance and rest you shall be saved;

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength."

Isaiah 30:15

What we want, and what we need...

“Woe is me!  I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, 

and I live among a people of unclean lips,

 and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty!” 

Isa. 6:5

How can a prophet and man of God have such a reaction before the Living God?  Did not God call Isaiah through the vision into His presence?  Why would God allow Isaiah to feel this way and to have such an experience?

We have such a tendency to make our understanding of God and faith centered upon us and our experiences and needs.  We are often like small children going through the grocery store with our parents.  Seeing the food around us, we realize we are hungry and we demand our needs be met immediately.  We do not care that we are on our way home to eat a nutritious meal.  We do not care that our bodies need healthy food.  We want the candy bar that is within reach at the checkout line.  

In other words, what we want and what we really need are often two very different things.

We want to be accepted just as we are.  We wish that God would affirm us, give us some candy, and always have a smile for us.  These are our greatest wants and desires.  In fact, these are our greatest needs.  

The problem is that we insist that God gives us the candy bar without feeding us the healthy meal.  We want God to change so we do not have to.

Ultimately, our greatest problem in life is our lack of self-awareness concerning our true condition before God, others, creation and ourselves.  Here is where this passage in Isaiah can help give us some perspective.

In Isaiah 6, we see the prophet encountering the Holy God.  He is undone before Him.  He has seen God and he knows he needs grace.  Fortunately in the next verse, a seraph took a live coal from the alter and touched Isaiah’s mouth declaring, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” (vs. 8)  As Isaiah met God, he became aware of his need, and he called out for grace.  God answered his need by sending grace.

In my experience, such experiences of grace cannot come often enough.  They often lead to rapid advances in Christian maturity and understanding that work out in increased love for God and others.  Such life-changing times of growth often occur at conversion, but they should also continue at different times throughout our Christian life. 

Why?  As we grow to know the Holy God better, we should see our need for grace more since we see our sin more.  This is also the prime mark of authentic revival.

So why do we not see this often as a mark of Christian faith and practice?  Why do we lack such awakenings, which lead to true revival?

There are many factors.  First, we have not been taught this form of spirituality as the norm.  An emphasis on humility and brokenness runs counter to the American spirit of individualism and self-effort. 

Second, this spirituality runs counter to the workings of our fallen soul.  It does not sound nearly as good to us as “self-improvement” through works on the one hand or free and easy grace and forgiveness that doesn’t involve brokenness and humility on the other.  The truth is that many of us would rather keep a holy God at arms length.  Unfortunately, there are always religious peddlers who will wittingly or unwittingly give us what our hearts want by minimizing God’s holiness and our need. 

The result is a watered-down spirituality that lacks vitality.  Thus, we do not have true awakening and revival.  This is particularly true among those profess Christ for years.  New believers often have a glimpse of their need and God’s grace; but as they continue in the Christian faith, they lose their vitality.

Why?  Instead of growing in their understanding of God's holiness, which would lead to deeper repentance and an understanding of our need for Christ, many believers never grow from their initial understanding of God's holiness and their need.  In His mercy, God allows us through life to see our need, but we cover it up with denial or blaming others.  The result is shallowness and fakery.  Instead, we should embrace a deeper repentance, live a life of authentic confession, and find God's incredible mercy in Christ is increasing real for us.

Where are you today?  Do you have a spirit of revival and awakening in your life?  Do you have a vital, living faith?  Do you want such a life?  If so, come before the Holy God and pray for mercy to see both your need for Christ and Christ’s love for you.  True revival awaits.