Colossians 1.10
“Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”
John 14.15
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
There is much confusion and fuzzy thinking on the relationship between believing and striving in the Christian faith. Let’s clarify. Striving (putting forth effort) and believing (trusting God) are both part of the Christian life. Beware of the false dichotomy! Beware the tyranny of either/or. Faith is essential, and so is discipline.
If you separate these two categories, you distort and do harm to the Christian life. Your life will get out of balance and out of focus.
There is a very unfortunate pejorative use of “performance” in the writing of some Christian commentators. The reality is that taking disciplined action (i.e., performance) is part of life in the kingdom of God. We are put on this planet to perform many tasks, that is, to do things. God commanded man to have dominion and perform the duties he has assigned to us.
But like everything else in the fallen world, performance is subject to distortion and corruption. It has been distorted by the fall. The good news is that in Christ, performance is redeemed and restored. God calls us to perform according to the redeemed understanding, not the fallen understanding.
It is true that one can have a distorted and damaging view of performance in relationship to God. “If I perform, God will love me more” is a false statement that wounds the soul. But the opposite is also false and just as damaging: “God loves me just the way I am, so I do not have to perform up to his standards.”
Again, performance is an essential part of life as God designed it. Sin distorted performance, and Christ has redeemed performance.
Dallas Willard provides simple insight when he says: “God is not opposed to effort. He is opposed to earning.” We do not earn God’s love or forgiveness through performance. Rather, because we are saved, and because the Holy Spirit resides within us, we perform our duties, we strive and act and put forth effort in response to his love and grace.
The Christian walk is a call to “trust + effort.” One without the other is a mistake. Trust without effort leads to passiveness and sloppiness. Effort without trust leads to pride and anxiety. God has given us attributes and abilities that he wants us to utilize as we manage the planet. To fail to fully utilize those attributes and abilities is a failure to obey him.
However, it is important to understand that the sin nature can direct how we utilize our attributes, or our redeemed nature can direct how we utilize our attributes.
For example, we are going to think and make decisions. Our thinking/decision-making can be directed by the sin nature, or it can be directed by our new nature in Christ. The same is true for how we manage our emotions. And for how we engage in personal relationships. And for how we set goals and execute action plans.
It is up to us to trust Christ and live the redeemed version of the attributes, not the corrupted version. To accomplish that, we must trust in Jesus and work hard every day. So much of what God has called us to do requires effort. Not self-powered effort, but spirit-powered effort.
Trust God and do the work.
