the Requiest

My son asked a question this past week while we were at the beach that caught me completely off guard. The weather was nice but the water was cool upon first entry. After the initial shock, swimming and body surfing was a blast. We kept encouraging my wife to join us in the fun. She was not up to getting in the water with us. My son looked at me and said with all the conviction an 11 year-old can muster -

“Why do people come to the ocean if they are not going to get in the water?”

As I look back on that question now I can come up with many reasons why someone would go to the ocean and and not go swimming – get a tan, people watch, enjoy warm weather, build sand castles, go fishing, take a walk with your spouse, etc. etc. But given the context of when he said it – we were having a great time jumping in the waves and carrying on in absolutely beautiful weather – the Holy Spirit impressed upon me with a 2X4 -

“You call yourself Christian yet you don’t fully partake of my Son.”

I asked myself where is the evidence to convict me as a Christian. I came up way, way, way short. I’ve been asking myself ever since how come I’m not living my life flat out for the charge given to us by Jesus – to make disciples of all nations. The last paragraph in this commentary says it all for me… and I’m having a hard time justifying why I’m not living my life differently. I’m thankful my son is so insightful.

This past Friday night, prior to attending the annual Tenebrae service at my church, I found a quiet place in which I could make preparations for the evening. During that time I found occasion for repentance and confession as I pondered those things I had done and those things I had left undone during that day. As I was confessing I was aware of an inward desire to commend myself to God as mostly righteous save for the few things I was confessing. In other words even in the midst of my confession and repentance my hope was not in what Luther called an “Alien Righteousness” but rather some righteousness within me that would make me acceptable to God.

Have I come so far in the gospel that I still believe that what makes me right before God is something in myself? Have I made no progress whatsoever? The sum of the gospel is that we rely on a completely “Alien Righteousness” to make us commendable to God.

When will I cease from my sinful tendency toward self-justification? When will I realize “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me”? When will I cease trusting in my own works and lean fully on a righteousness purchased for me by the most precious blood of the Saviour?

Praise be to God for His glorious matchless grace justly justifying us and giving to us a righteousness not of our own making. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin so that we might be the righteousness of God.