Written by Dawn Rutan
This blog is sort of a meal in progress—I’ve been chewing on these thoughts for awhile now and I’m just beginning to digest and make sense of them. The question now is whether I can verbalize in a few paragraphs the thought processes of a few years.
Thomas Chalmers, often quoted by John Piper and others, referred to “the expulsive power of a new affection.” He explained that we can’t simply choose to turn away from sin without turning to something we perceive to be more fulfilling. “The best way of casting out an impure affection is to admit a pure one; and by the love of what is good, to expel the love of what is evil.” That’s an accurate and helpful thought, but a bit misleading if we think it happens overnight. Becoming a Christian or rededicating your life to Christ does not immediately expel every competing desire, no matter how much we might wish it to do so. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered about this—I love God and I seek to serve Him and obey Him. Scripture says “we are more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37), so why does this struggle still exist?
However, even in the midst of these questions, as I look back on the past few years I can see tangible progress that I never thought possible. I’ve tried to determine where the change occurred, and what I’ve found is a series of small decisions that have compounded over time:
- choosing to confide in my pastor and seek his counsel
- getting more serious about filling my mind with Scripture through reading and memorization
- joining small group Bible studies
- journaling my thoughts and prayers
- getting rid of some of the books, videos, and TV shows that consume my brain with destructive images
- trusting people with some of my secrets
- and even blogging about the things I’m learning along the way
None of those things were major changes in themselves, and none of them alone have the power to change my desires. None of them were a direct confrontation with sin either. But all of them, together with God’s grace and mercy, have served to expel some of those competing desires from my heart, even some that I didn’t feel any urgency to stop.
I ran across this quote by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson in Heart Wide Open:
God reserves His intimacy for those unwilling to settle for anything less. If going to church is enough, if being around others who are passionate about Him is enough, if anything short of realizing His intimate presence for ourselves is enough, that’s all we’ll ever experience… Indeed, God placed this desire for more in us so that we might search for Him of our own volition. I’ve taken to calling it a blessed dissatisfaction. God knows that yielding our lives to Him brings us this life’s ultimate pleasure, but unlike me and my man, He’s not going to force anyone to go along with His plan… I didn’t realize that looking and listening for Him in His Word would create in me the sweetest of addictions to His friendship. I was simply ready to admit that what I had wasn’t enough. I was soon to discover that at the core of my ‘not having enough Jesus’ problem lay all my previous efforts to have ‘just enough’ Jesus (19-21).
She puts her finger on the problem that many of us face. We want just enough Jesus to save us and make us feel good, but not so much that it interferes with our chosen lifestyles. We may want to stop a particular sin, but we don’t want to give up our freedom to choose what we watch or read or do in our free time. We don’t want to admit that the solution for slavery to sin is to become slaves of God (see Romans 6). We want some middle ground of freedom from sin while remaining masters of our own lives.
It would be easy to become judgmental about the choices that others are making, but I’ve been in the same place myself. In fact, being judgmental was one thing that kept me from changing for a long time. I subconsciously thought, “I’ve been to Bible college and seminary. I go to church every week. I work for a Christian organization. I’m doing the best I can, and I’m certainly better than those people.” But I’m sure that God allowed circumstances in my life to converge to make me realize that “just enough” wasn’t good enough. Not that I thought God would love me more if I changed, but that my desperation made me want to love Him more.
Though we probably wouldn’t say this aloud, we can get sucked into believing that grace means we can do whatever we want. We can also be deceived to think that salvation by grace alone means we don’t have to work to grow in our faith. In the theological battle against works righteousness, “obedience” has become a dirty word that pastors are afraid to use. As a result, people remain enslaved to sins when God would love to set them free. We settle for the status quo instead of seeking the One who has the power to expel all our old affections. God’s life-changing power is rarely revealed with volcanic force, but rather with the pervasive tenacity of a seedling nurtured by ordinary means of grace.
I certainly don’t feel like I have arrived, and I’m sure there are areas where I need to change that I haven’t even noticed yet. God isn’t done yet. In the words of the old hymn (public domain):
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my heart to seek Him, seeking me;
It was not I that found, O Savior true;
No, I was found by Thee.
“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.” -2 Corinthians 5:13-14
