This article is reproduced with permission from Rochester Baptist Church website.
Religion | Faith in the Gospel |
"I obey - therefore I'm accepted." | "I'm accepted - therefore I obey." |
Motivation is based on fear and insecurity. | Motivation based on grateful joy. |
I obey God in order to get things from God. |
I obey God - to get God - to delight and resemble him. |
When circumstances in my life go wrong, I am angry at God or myself, since I believe, like Job's friends, that anyone who is good deserves a comfortable life.
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When circumstances in my life go wrong I struggle, but I know all my punishment fell on Jesus and that while he may allow this for my training, he will exercise his Fatherly love within my trial. |
When I am criticised I am furious or devastated because it is critical that I think of myself as a 'good person.' Threats to that self-image must be destroyed at all costs. |
When I am criticised I struggle, but it is not critical for me to think of myself as a 'good person.' My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on God's love for me in Christ. I can take criticism. That's how I became a Christian. |
My prayer consists largely of petition and it only heats up when I am in a time of need. My main purpose in prayer is control of the environment. | My prayer life consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration. My main purpose is fellowship with Him. |
My self-view swings between two poles. If and when I am living up to my standards, I feel confident, but then I am prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. If and when I am not living up to standards, I feel humble but not confident - I feel like a failure.
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My self-view is not based on a view of myself as a moral achiever. In Christ I am ‘simul iustus et peccator’ - simultaneously sinful and lost yet accepted in Christ. I am so bad he had to die for me and I am so loved he was glad to die for me. This leads me to deeper and deeper humility and confidence at the same time. Neither swaggering nor snivelling. |
My identity and self-worth are based mainly on how hard I work, or how moral I am - and so I must look down on those I perceive as lazy or immoral. I disdain and feel superior to 'the Other'. |
My identity and self-worth is centred on the one who died for his enemies, who was excluded from the city for me. I am saved by sheer grace. So I can't look down on those who believe or practice something different from me. Only by grace I am what I am. I've no inner need to win arguments. |
Since I look to my own pedigree or performance for my spiritual acceptability, my heart manufactures idols. It may be my talents, my moral record, my personal discipline, my social status, etc. I absolutely have to have them so they serve as my main hope, meaning, happiness, security and significance, whatever I may say I believe about God. |
I have many good things in my life - family, work, spiritual disciplines, etc. But none of these good things are ultimate things to me. None of them are things I absolutely have to have, so there is a limit to how much anxiety, bitterness and despondency they can inflict on me when they are threatened and lost. |
This article is reproduced with permission from Rochester Baptist Church website.