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Christian Network

The Bible tells us that God works in us, that we cannot do anything without him. Yet, it also declares that we have a role to play, responsibilities to accept and work to do. One of the most difficult challenges of the Christian life is avoiding the extreme versions of "Let Go, and let God" and "God helps those who help themselves." While neither of these terms are found in scripture both contain substantial truth. On one hand we must not make the mistake of lying back in our easy chairs and waiting for God to bless and heal our lives, but we should also not try to change into the image of his Son through fleshly effort either.

The truth is that our sanctification depends on a cooperative, though very uneven, partnership between our Lord and ourselves. This should not be a surprise. God is intrinsically relational, witness the Trinity, and beings made in his own image are created for relationship as well. It was never the Creator’s will to design totally autonomous, independent creatures. In fact the greatest proponent of such radical self-sufficiency is Satan himself. The Fall of the human race was all about the Devil’s attempt to convince us that we were meant to be God, rather than depend on God. Any attempt by a believer to achieve perfection in his or her own strength is a legacy of the Enemy’s devastating success in that attempt.

The flesh cannot reform the flesh. Spiritually speaking the modern term "Self-help" is a tragic oxymoron. It is only through surrender to Christ and to the ultimate power of his shed blood that enables real, positive change to occur in our lives. Apart from him we can truly do nothing to effect our growth in godliness. As long as we are consciously or unconsciously trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps we will abjectly fail to become Christ-like. In fact if we continue to strive to reform ourselves by ourselves we will only push ourselves away from the real Source of our sanctification and, if anything, become more distant from him.

The other extreme is to become completely passive and expect God to transform our lives without any input from us at all. This He will not do. God expects all his children to take an active role in their spiritual growth. This role is not so much about effort as about trusting obedience. Our job in such obedience is to take the vital first step of trusting that the power required to do whatever He wants us to do, or be whatever He wants us to be, will be supplied, as we will to obey his call. When we take that step we will be amazed to find that the strength we need is given to us in abundance. This is how the great saints of church history accomplished such seemingly superhuman tasks, because they literally received superhuman power through trusting that "with God nothing is impossible."

No one is saved through effort. If salvation comes only through faith in the Savior why would the same not be true, though perhaps in a different sense, in regards to sanctification? We cannot transform ourselves by ourselves. Conversely, inertly waiting for God to remake us without any cooperation in the process on our parts doesn’t work either. The real key to spiritual transformation is a kind of faith similar to that which saved us in the first place. When we become willing to trust God for any strength we need in order to do or become something new, and then act on the basis of that trust, he gives us the ability to accomplish whatever his will is for our lives. All we need do is walk it out in his power. This type of "active faith" is the best way to trump both self-effort and spiritual passivity.