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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

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Not Quite There Yet

When I first started writing these challenges a couple of months ago, I said that I in no way felt like a faith giant by any description, but merely as one on the way.  I am, and I trust that you are too, still a work in progress.  Have I grown at all through the exercise of doing this?  I hope so.  I am learning more every day and I want to learn so much more.  There is lots of desire to be more.  And yet, I sometimes feel like I fall so far short of what I would like to be that it is tempting to despair.  Will I ever get there?  Don't we all have days where we know exactly what Paul was talking about in Romans 7, where we confess how wretched and powerless we feel and wonder "who will rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24, see the answer in v.25!).

I find it very helpful to step back and refocus from time to time.  We all need to do that.  Where am I now?  Where have I come from?  Do I see at least some progress?  And in the midst of all of this, it is very helpful to remind ourselves of the place where our true confidence lies, not in what we can do or what we can accomplish but in what he can do and is doing.  "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).

At times, however, it is difficult to write a faith challenge or to preach a faith message.  I'm sure that all of us have felt at one time or another that we cannot really say anything to anyone because we are so not there yet.  We may feel like a failure or that we have blown it or that we are so hypocritical.  Take heart!  We should always be encouraging even ourselves with our own words to go beyond where we are right now.  We know that we should definitely "practice what we preach" and I wouldn't advocate anything less, but I always have to "preach" beyond where I am right now so that I can get there.  Do you see that the biggest part of the word "preach" has to do with "reach"?!  To declare things that are beyond where I am right now is an act of faith.  To preach things that I am not doing is about reaching for more.  Hypocrisy is choosing to do less than what I tell others they should do.  One no less than Paul the apostle says,

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12-14). 

There is a sense in which we will always be speaking and wanting and desiring beyond where we really are.  That is okay.  That is the way it is supposed to be even.  Paul says a couple of verses later, "Only let us live up to what we have already attained" (Philippians 3:16).  Pressing forward with our words so that our actions can follow is never hypocritical.  That only happens when we pretend that we are something that we are not.  We are supposed to look at ourselves in honesty (see Romans 12:3).  And then, we are to go forward from where we are.  Press on.  There is always more.  And even if it feels like we sometimes go two steps forward and one step back, at least we are gaining ground and not loosing it.  This side of heaven, we will never "be there" because there is always more.  That should be encouraging.  I will never exhaust what God has in store for me!


"Preach faith until you have it." — John Wesley
 

We will live our whole lives somewhere between the already and the not yet.  And that is the way that God intends it to be.  That should never be cause for discouragement though the enemy of our souls would try to take us there.  The early Christians were called People of the Way and that is how we should see ourselves.  I am on the way and I am always going to preach and teach myself and allow the word of God to call me to a place that is beyond where I am right now!  Preach your way into faith, John Wesley said!  Press on to take hold of more, Paul said!  We may not quite be there yet, but we are on the way!  Let's enjoy the journey of faith, the way that God has mapped it out for us!  There is always more to see and discover!