Grace pt3

You might also remember the preacher I made you all listen to on the way up to Scotland last summer – the one Dad said sounded like a Disney voice actor. I wish I’d played almost any other of his talks from that series, because they were quite a milestone for me. He points out something that’s been right under my nose all my life, but missed in my utilitarian religious looking at things. “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him”.

What this means is, it isn’t our good behaviour, our radical lifestyle, our acts of love to people in need, that will best show the world how great Jesus is. Weirdly, it’s our dependence on him. If we do good stuff on our own it makes us look impressive, not him. Because the Father’s primary aim is to bring about a full appreciation of his glory (he actually deserves it so this is not the selfish arrogant thing it would be if we were to attempt the same), he is actually way more pleased by our coming to him with a ‘please help’, than a ‘look what I did for you’; with us spending loads of time enjoying being with him and getting to know him than doing what we do every night - try to take over the world.

Me and you have rightly been brought up to believe in ‘put your money where your mouth is’ Christianity – ‘faith without deeds is dead’. We never forget that when Jesus answered ‘what is the most important commandment?’, he gave two answers, because it is so important to love other people. But I recently realised that I had been forgetting something about Jesus’ answer – ‘love people’ still comes ‘second’ to ‘love God’. What I sense is that we’re supposed to focus on loving God, and we will then find ourselves loving people.

I think I’ve spent most of my Christian life, not trying to earn my ‘ticket to heaven’, but the Father’s smile. And I’m beginning to realise it was all a waste of time, because he was always smiling at me. And I never noticed because I was too busy trying to impress him, or impress myself. I think what I really want to say is, learn to just sit and enjoy his smile. That’s what he most wants you to do. It will give you real quicksilver joy, whatever else is happening in your life. And people will see your joy, instead of your weariness, and think they want that for themselves. Don’t worry about doing good works – you’ll end up doing them without thinking about the fact that they are ‘good’. All you have to do now is enjoy the Father’s love for you.

Big big lumps of fudge,
Tim