Setting the Bar High

Today is the third day in our 41st week, reading the Bible through in a year.  Our scriptures today are Jeremiah 30:30-33; 1 Peter 1.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now I'm found;

was blind, but now I see.

These are the words of perhaps the most famous hymn in the world.  God's grace is amazing, and it's what saves everyone who comes to Jesus in their wretchedness, asking for forgiveness and eternal life.  God doesn't save us because we deserve it--He saves us because He is good.  "Grace" means "unmerited favor."  It's not something we can earn, but it is something we can receive in faith.

Saved by grace!  But then what?

The early church had a problem that still exists today--people who received God's grace, loved God for his grace, reveled in God's grace, and then trampled on God's grace.  People who said, "I'm saved because Jesus forgave and forgives my every sin," but who took that grace for granted and interpreted it as a license to sin.

The apostle Peter says that God expects more of His children who have been saved.  In 1 Peter 1:13-16 (NIV), he writes:

Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.  But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

We set our hope on the grace of Jesus Christ.  That's how we're saved.  But then, the Lord expects us to be obedient children of God.  He calls us to be holy.

Now, I'm the first one to admit that I fall far short of the mark of God's holiness.  That's why I need a Savior.  That's why I daily trust Him for forgiveness.  But does that trust mean that I give up trying to please God?

Back in the early 1980s (Yeah, I know, this dates me), Amy Grant performed a song that was written by Michael Card, called "I Have Decided."  Here are the lyrics:

I have decided
I'm gonna live like a believer
Turn my back on the deceiver
I'm gonna live what I believe

I have decided
Being good is just a fable
I just can't 'cause I'm not able
I'm gonna leave it to the Lord

There's a wealth of things that I profess
I said that I believed
But deep inside I never changed
I guess I'd been deceived

'Cause a voice inside kept telling me
That I'd change by and by
But the spirit made it clear to me
That kind of life's a lie

I have decided
I'm gonna live like a believer
Turn my back on the deceiver
I'm gonna live what I believe

I have decided
Being good is just a fable
I just can't 'cause I'm not able
I'm gonna leave it to the Lord

So forget the game of being good
And your self-righteous pain
'Cause the only good inside your heart
Is the good that Jesus brings

And when the world begins to see you change
Don't expect them to applaud
Just keep your eyes on him and tell yourself
I've become the work of God

I have decided
I'm gonna live like a believer
Turn my back on the deceiver
I'm gonna live what I believe

I have decided
Being good is just a fable
I just can't 'cause I'm not able
I'm gonna leave it to the Lord

I have decided
I'm gonna live like a believer
Turn my back on the deceiver
I'm gonna live what I believe

I have decided
Being good is just a fable
I just can't 'cause I'm not able
I'm gonna leave it to the Lord

I have decided
I'm gonna live like a believer
Turn my back on the deceiver
I'm gonna live what I believe

I have decided
Being good is just a fable
I just can't 'cause I'm not able
I'm gonna leave it to the Lord

I have decided
I'm gonna live like a believer
Turn my back on the deceiver
I'm gonna live what I believe
I have decided

Basically, the message here is that it's enough to generically "live like a believer," but the song never really says what that means, aside from turning one's back on the deceiver.  Is it the deceiver's voice inside the head, that suggests to Grant/Card that there must be a change in behavior?  They counter that notion by saying, "Forget the game of being good and your self-righteous pain."  And, "Being good is just a fable; I just can't, 'cause I'm not able."  

How can they say this when over and over, Scripture tells us to be holy?  Being a Christian isn't about being good boys and girls and behaving ourselves--it's about trusting Jesus for our salvation.  But after salvation comes sanctification and regeneration.  It's not enough to simply say, "Just keep your eyes on him and tell yourself, 'I've become the work of God.'"  No--living what you believe means putting your faith into practice.  A child of God should act like a child of God.

Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NIV) says that God wants to make a new kind of covenant with His people, one in which we're changed from the very core.

31 

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.

God intends to change hearts, not just behavior.  But it's not enough to say, "The Word of God is written on my heart; therefore, I don't have to actually follow it."  Sure, the Word moves from tablets of stone to tablets of flesh, but does it really flesh itself out in your life?  

It's a daily journey, one in which God is changing me more and more into His image.  I'm not perfect, I'm not holy--far from it.  But it's a good goal, isn't it?   

There's an expression that comes from the Olympic High Jump.  That expression is "setting the bar high."  In this event, jumpers vault over a horizontal bar that can be set at different heights.  The higher the jump, the better the score.  When practicing for the high jump, athletes, might say to themselves, "It's so much easier to jump over a bar that's set low," and this is certainly true.  But by setting the bar high, they push themselves to achieve more.  Sometimes they might miss the mark and knock the bar off its posts.  But unless they set the bar high they'll never challenge themselves to higher and higher jumps.  Setting the bar low is always easier, but it never yields good results.

Basically, Grant/Card's song says, "Just set the bar low and count on God's grace to fill in the gaps."  Not a very good recipe for living the victorious Christian life.  As the hymn says, we're saved by God's amazing grace--but why should the story of our faith life end at salvation?  Let's move on to sanctification and regeneration.  Let's set the bar high!