Adam:
Well Jim, in last week’s Shovel Audio “Regarding Choice” Part 2, we discussed the difference between the biblical principals Christians hold to and that of Christ in us and the reality of growing in grace. Many imagine that “growing in grace” is simply a matter of adhering to biblical principles that are supposed to create a gradual removal of sin by having it slowly pushed out through various godly actions.

Jim:
The more I understand the simplicity of God’s amazing deliverance through Christ’s doing away with sin, the more it makes me wonder how those who teach that cannot see how they’ve set up a Christian living that denies exactly what Christ has done.

Adam:
Jim, as we have been concentrating our series on the letter to Titus, I had it in mind to bring in Paul’s very well known letter to the Romans that so thoroughly describes the revelation of God’s grace to mankind through His Son and the role that the Law played in leading us to Christ. There seems to be such a major misunderstanding of the words written within it’s pages. Why don’t we talk a bit more about how this ‘growing in grace’ that Paul and Peter speaks of in other letters, shows up in this one? For instance lets take Romans 6 and start there since that is one that seems to get bent into a striving thing by so many christians. Let me read some of the passage right here:

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let [or make the right/good choice!] sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Romans 6:11-23

Jim, can you give us a sense of what Paul means in his comment to “not LET sin reign in your mortal body”? How does this fit with the reality that we are not choosing between good and evil but that we are walking in the realm of the “pure”? It sounds so much like a struggle to not sin! lol

Jim:
The religious mind just loves Paul’s use of that word “let” because it offers the illusion of control. I mean, how often do Christians refer to their choice to let, that is, to allow God to work in their lives? Of course, it would seem that this thinking fits quite well within the perception of most Christians that I know. After all, how many of you came to know about salvation through Jesus Christ under the premise that your final destination was all up to you?

Did I want to get saved? Did I want to escape the everlasting fires of hell and secure a place in heaven? And it was all up to me? Whew! I’d have to be a moron not to let God save me! That was part my introduction into this thing. While I’m aware that although some share a similar experience, many others do not. However, this concept of the personal control offered by that word “let” seems to cross all boundaries.

Adam, what about you? How was this thing presented to you?

Adam:
Well, I would say that allot of what I experienced has had the same feel as you describe. What’s interesting about that doctrinal stance of ‘allowing” and “letting” is that, while we are claiming to have let go of something, we are actually holding on to many fleshly things in the attempt to let go! For instance, I can claim to have “let” God do something in my life while at the same time take all the credit for “letting Him” do that. This is fakery at best. It certainly isn’t miraculous. Why don’t we get suspicious when these fleshly stances give man [flesh] all the credit in the end? [even though the WORDS acknowledge Him]

So Jim, were you actually thinking in terms of the power you had in letting God save you? As if it were a conscious thing?

Jim:
No, I don’t remember having thought of it like that … at least, not early on. However, when I was confronted with the whole concept of sharing my faith with others — you know, as in witnessing or evangelism — I was forced to become more reflective about what had happened to me. The truth is that I wasn’t really sure what had actually happened. For me, any memory of an exact date or time that I could attach to my salvation was clouded in mystery. Recently though, having looked back on the whole situation, I often wonder if God brought me through it on purpose.

Adam:
But at the time, did you see it as a positive thing?

Jim:
No! Not at all. In fact, I was growing more and more insecure because of it.

Now, I’ve mentioned it before, but my religious background was Lutheran, and we just didn’t do stuff like going forward at the end of the church service, except on special occasions … and that was almost always in a group. You see, my participation in church was either as part of the “congregation” or part of the choir or even as one of the acolytes (the boys who light the candles). Sticking myself out there in church was when I was called upon to sing a solo in the choir, and it scared me silly. To respond at the end of a message week after week by going forward? That was an unknown to me. Hey, I believed in God … and in what Jesus did. I went to church every week. And I was more or less regarded as a pretty decent kid … at least, I did try to live up to people’s expectations.

Adam:
Did you actually think you lived up to all the expectations put on you?

Jim:
Definitely not. I mean, even though I lived much of my life in such a way that was pleasing to my parents and teachers, I somehow came to realize that I didn’t have to push things to the limit in order to prove to myself that I was immune. I was very naive about a lot of things in the world around me, but I scared myself enough times to convince me to play it safe. I have often wondered if God was just slowly opening my eyes to the deceptiveness of sin, especially in view of the games so many Christians play … but I’m getting ahead of myself here.

I moved to Florida when I was 18, and I got involved in a local Christian Coffee House, if any of you remember those days from the 70s. By the way, that ministry went under the name Abraxas (which was the name of the popular Latin-rock album by Santana … Carlos Santana’s band). Anyhow, I was thrown into a whole new experience. The particular ministry my sister and I found was part of the local First Baptist Church. And let me tell you, it was only those newly-formed relationships that kept me there, for I was way out of my element!

Adam:
So, how did this new experience bring you to the place where, as you stated, “I was forced to become more reflective about what had happened to me”?

Jim:
Well, it was in that first summer in Florida — the summer of 71 — that I began to hear testimonies from Christians who knew the time and date of their salvation decision. It kinda made me wonder if I was missing out on something. It definitely caused me to take guesses as to a date and time. Now, there was one prominent event I could point to from a few years back: a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade that had aired on TV while I was at my Grandmother’s. When he gave the altar call at the end of his message, people were streaming down to the front — many of them sobbing uncontrollably. I suppose it had to do with the depth of sin that he spoke of, but then, I was only 14 or 15 at the time. I was obviously impacted by the whole thing, because at the end of the message, I made a very quiet and secretive assent — you know, I was one of those TV-viewers he addressed — although, I think I remember it being more in terms of a serious dedication. You see, I still really don’t know for sure. Later though, it did give me something by which to validate my salvation … when asked, that is.

Adam:
And that sense of validation was very important to you, wasn’t it?

Jim:
You’re doggoned-right, it was! And in case any of you have imagined me as having had some kind of a personality trait that made me unafraid of confrontation, I can assure you that my experience would prove that I was exactly the opposite. I’m quite serious about this, for I was so afraid of confrontation that I embarrassed my father on more than one occasion with my total inability to handle the slightest opposition.

Let’s see if I can describe the tension that started tugging at me during that time of my life. I was 18, and I was totally psyched with my circumstances. You see, I had just moved with my family to what I considered a tropical paradise. So when my parents bought an apartment complex in southeast Florida, just one-half block from the Atlantic Ocean, I can assure you that I was living the dream!

Look, I grew up with very few friends for most of my life because I was so shy and withdrawn that I was afraid to put myself out there. Within a couple months after moving, I had befriended more people than in all my years previous to it. My new friends and non-stop activities kept me so busy that I just didn’t go out of my way to watch TV any more. And I didn’t miss it one bit. Well, numerous of my new friends did get me into a new routine of staying up late on Saturday nights to watch Creature Feature … but it had less to do with the show than with the fun we had laughing at the corny effects.

Adam:
And the tension … how did that enter into the picture?

Jim:
Okay, so the tension created by being confronted with the matter of my salvation was building behind the scenes of my blissful new life in south Florida. For a while, it was easy to push it out of the way. I had already been accepted as part of this new group. And no one actually questioned me after they heard my claim of faith (which I’m pretty sure was a reality). But that didn’t stop the tension from ominously growing in the background, for the question as to whether I had officially … truly … sincerely … Biblically … “accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior” silently began to haunt me.

Adam:
As you reflect back on it, what do you think was bothering you about it?

Jim:
I think what really started to bother me was the fact that I didn’t have a dynamic salvation experience. I wasn’t wallowing deep in the sins of my generation, as described by those who gave powerful testimonies of how the Lord saved them from debauchery. I seriously appreciated being forgiven for what I had done to others, but compared to those who told such powerful stories of deliverance from the depths of sin, my stuff sounded rather tame … as if I was trying to hide the real evil deeds of my life.

Adam:
So, were you trying to hide the real evil deeds of your life?

Jim:
Well, I surely didn’t want to hang out all my dirty laundry, but I suspect there was something more to it than just a desire to protect my reputation among my new friends … which I know was definitely a factor. It’s just that … something was holding me back from competing on that level. Maybe it was my sense of inadequacy in being able to produce a dynamic and powerful salvation story of the kind I was hearing. One way or the other, I just don’t remember being aware of having “let” God work in my life in that way.

Adam:
So, how were you coming to see this matter of competition?

Jim:
It took a few years for me to see it, but hidden within some of those testimonies was a competition as to who had been the baddest, and therefore, who had been most gloriously saved! And it was all promoted under the guise of giving God the glory. Sure, they may have been telling the story of how Jesus came to rescue them by dying on the cross, but the thing I remembered was the sin they had been rescued from — and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who came away with that memory. You know, people get an amazing rush in the face of competition, and I have to wonder how often we, as believers, have assumed that God has been responsible for the thrills we’ve received from those fleshly shows.

Adam:
I’m curious as to how your Christian Coffee House experience caused you to eventually see things in the way you did.

Jim:
Well, every Saturday evening, we hung out at Abraxas and sang Christian songs like Kum By Yah and I Wish We’d All Been Ready. We talked, we laughed, we had fun, we were encouraged and entertained by visiting singers and small groups. That first summer, every meeting ended with a salvation story from the youth leader, or sometimes one of the other prominent figures in the group. Very intense messages. And if I’m not mistaken, he told the Biblical story of the Prodigal Son on more than a few occasions, using it to explain his own experience of running from God and falling deep into sin. And there was always an “invitation.” As I mentioned already, that was very foreign to me at first, but I got used to it. For me, that tension kept growing because the salvation question was always in my face. And even though I viewed it as one who wished everybody else would be ready when the time came, it still reminded me that my own story seemed so powerless. Like I’ve indicated, as far as I was concerned, I didn’t have a testimony worth giving, and when put on the spot, I pretty much kept things short and sweet. Right around 10pm, the leader announced that the Coffee House was officially closed, and that only “charter members” could stay. Somehow, my sister and I were grandfathered-in as charter members, and I think it was at our very first meeting. There were announcements, and more songs, and prayers, and crying, as well as another shot at an invitation. Who knows, maybe they were waiting for me to get “saved”? After all, from what I saw in that Baptist church was that those who came down front were mostly the same people over and over again. I just didn’t get that whole thing. And by the way, the church that sponsored the youth group was very bland, which made things very interesting when some of the elders checked us out.

Adam:
So, you were talking about the tension that was building within you and how this relates to the belief that WE are the ones who control our salvation, and how it’s because we’re told that it’s up to us. Did you have more to add here?

Jim:
One of the elements that brought this tension more into view came in the form of their preferred evangelistic tract, The Four Spiritual Laws. The upshot of the presentation in that little booklet made the demand that in order to be saved, you had to “let Jesus Christ sit on the throne of your heart.” Religiously, it sounded pretty good. I had assumed I must have done so, though did I really? I would feel these little pricks of guilt when I heard it. Had I let Jesus Christ sit on the throne of my heart? I wasn’t actually sure if I knew what the throne of my heart was. I remember having observed the summer youth leader a few times as he challenged some outsiders with the needed decision.

And then to add to my growing confusion, I went back for a short visit to my hometown in Virginia the following summer. While there, I stopped in at my previous church during their yearly Vacation Bible School program, and I had a few minutes to speak with my former pastor. I excitedly told him about my new religious situation in Florida, but rather than being encouraged, his face got solemn, and he made an ominous comment about my need to be careful.

As time went on back in Florida, I heard some statements that suggested, implied, or even demanded that if I didn’t know the exact time of my salvation, I might not be saved!

Adam:
That must have been a difficult time.

Jim:
I didn’t know how to handle it, other than to keep that part of my experience out of the spotlight. I can probably describe much of my life up to that time with a quote from a Jim Carey movie, The Majestic, when, as Peter Appleton, he says, “I’ve never been a man of great conviction. I never saw the percentage in it.” I, like many of you, perhaps, found it easier to keep quiet and to stay under the radar … but my new surroundings were making my comfort zone more and more difficult to maintain. However, like the character in that movie, it was in the midst of the realization that I had never been a man of great conviction that a true conviction was emerging. And like a lot of others, I kept trying to identity the thing that was emerging by what seemed obvious.

And one of those things happened when I went to an evangelistic youth retreat in December of 72. At the end of the conference, I, along with a few others from my area, went forward to dedicate our lives to serve God as witnesses for Christ.

I thought I was finally coming to understand myself now because, two weeks later, I enrolled and was attending Bible College. I was apparently “letting” God have his way in my life. Or at least, that how I was learning to interpret the events of my drastically changed life.

Within the first month or two attending Bible College classes, numerous preachers and teachers were examined as to the clarity of their gospel messages. I can’t remember who else was on the list, but I’ll never forget when Billy Graham’s message was questioned as being “muddy.” The suggestion came across loud and clear that many people who thought they got saved under that ministry may have only been bolstered in their religious works-for-salvation perceptions. Let me tell you, that took my time-and-date validation away … at least in the realm of my new trusted source for Bible truth. So, here I was again, searching my own life’s experiences to discover if I had ever let God save me.

Despite my attempts to make sense of things, the tension was only growing more and more every day. However, I was still able to keep it under wraps for a while longer. Well, at least, that’s the way I saw it, and I would imagine that not everybody saw it quite the same way. I know God didn’t see it that way, and I’m glad he knew what was going on inside me … especially since I was getting hammered with some of those powerful testimonies every single day … testimonies that made my own story seem not worth telling.

You know what, though? God was opening my eyes to a lot of what was going on, because in the midst of it all — especially in view of my own failure to produce a salvation story that could draw others in — I began to see through some of the drama that made me envious. It was just a glimpse here and there, but it was probably all I could handle at the time. All I knew was that I was going through a crisis that undermined my attempts to persuade others to “accept Christ as their Savior.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but it all hinged upon how I was trying to get others to let Christ save them when it didn’t seem to coincide very well with the truth of my own story. And you want to know what? This same faulty perception is the very thing that creates the tension that paralyzes many of us in the face of trying to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies!

(Adam’s feedback)

Jim:
A lot of religious folks down through the years have infused a lot of power into that little word, let, and I suspect that you and I have often felt the weight of that fleshly perception bearing down upon us when we approach what it might mean to not let sin reign in our mortal body. Don’t forget, this is the same mind, the same perception that Paul exposed and confounded all the way through his letter to the Romans.

When we are walking in such a way that our choices revolve around the struggle to not sin, do we think we are actually living what could possibly be regarded as the Christian life? In other words, does a life that constantly battles sin be considered free from it, as Paul clearly stated in Romans 6:7? This life of sin-centered struggle might be exactly what many Christians have settled for.

When we view Paul’s argument according to how he brought it to this point, the very idea of not letting sin reign in our mortal bodies is not a suggestion that our lives have been returned to the same old bondage of choosing between good and evil as found under the law, but rather it is a demand that we not give into the deception that keeps being thrown back at us. What the Christian moralizers of that time failed to recognize is that they were the ones who were promoting the very thing that Paul told the believers not to give into.

Adam:
Okay, let’s continue:
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.