God did an amazing work during our two week discipleship camp. He worked in all the ways we had hoped, and more; including ways completely unexpected. My fellow worker Andrew said it was “wonderful to behold”.
The one thing I am most thankful for is that Andrew and John and I had been taught through prior ministry experiences that we can’t do ministry. We do not have the power, by any means, to change lives permanently for the better. Only God does that.
All of the spiritual growth, conformity to Christ, and increased devotion to God happened through the working of God; and in the context of our own short-fallings, inabilities, and mistakes.
We work through things as God works on us, praising him for his work, both in and through us.
What struck me about this truth recently was that most Christians are only really OK with half of it. We love the fact that God works through us; but we don’t like that we make mistakes. I’m not talking about disliking the specific mistakes we make and wanting to fix them. That is healthy. I’m talking about discontentment with the fact that we make mistakes at all. We don’t like being imperfect.
The Perfectionism Trap
Now, we could beat ourselves up about minor mistakes like scheduling errors; striving desperately to do better. And yes, we can do better; but we could always do “better,” and we will never do “well.”
Many Christians strive endlessly in a vicious cycle. They are always supposed to be perfect, but never can be. They strive and strive, never feeling accepted by God, who they imagine demands something beyond reach. For some the cycle is depressive. These people either drop out of ministry or continue to plod on painfully. For others it is manic, an addictive workaholism that almost inevitably results in a merit-earning theology.
What is the problem here? How do we get stuck in this cycle, and how do we get out? We must learn to accept grace.
Accepting Grace
It is true that we can always do better, and will never do good (that is, perfect). This is what Jesus points out to the overachieving rich young ruler. Nobody gets to be “good” in the way this young man wanted to be except God. Paul himself tells us in Romans 7 that nothing good dwells in him, and again we see in Galatians 2 that the only good in us is Jesus. The first step in the process is to accept that.
We are weak vessels, jars of clay as 1 Corinthians 4:7 tells us. Nothing good dwells in us. Nothing, except Jesus Christ. And that’s the key. God is working on us through Jesus. That is why Paul said in Philippians 4 that he could do the high-sounding spiritual concepts in that chapter (rejoicing, contentment, etc.). He could do all that through Christ who was strengthening him. That’s why Romans chapter 7, talking through this difficult subject of the ongoing sinfulness and imperfection of believers, ends with “thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” We live in a sinful body, but Christ has redeemed us and is living through us.
The second step is to understand that God accepts this reality as well. Jesus himself was acquainted with our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). He felt what it was to be a creature. But more than that, God the Father understands our condition and doesn’t expect us to transcend it. He knows how he made us, and he made us that way on purpose. “He knows that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14).
What is this process of Jesus being all of our goodness within us? Grace. God is working in us and through us by grace. That’s the way he set it up. We aren’t perfect—and not because we aren’t trying hard enough. We aren’t perfect because God wanted it that way.
Look at the jars of clay verse in 1 Corinthians 4:7 again. God has placed the treasure of the gospel into our weak and imperfect frames for the purpose the gospel is designed to accomplish. It is to the praise of the glory of his grace.
He does plan to work in us and through us. The catch is that we don’t get to truly have the spotlight. We are always failing and being used anyway.
All those in ministry will either be continually dissatisfied because of themselves, or continually satisfied because of God.
As mentioned above, we must continue to work as God continues to work in us. By satisfied, I do not mean inactive, I mean content. I do not think we grow discontent with the process of God working on us. I think we grow discontent with the fact that we need work. We don’t want to be dependent. We don’t want to be broken. We don’t want to need grace. Yet that is what we are. We are human, and God wants us human.
So do ministry, and accept grace.
Under Grace,
John Fritz
John Fritz is the Volunteer Coordinator for Thoughtful Life Ministries and the primary author of the Thoughtful Life Journal, which is published weekly from March through September. The purpose of this blog is to challenge and encourage those who have a desire to cultivate a more meaningful walk with Christ. Visit our Homepage to learn more about the ministry and our annual two-week summer Discipleship Program for teens and young adults.