If we long to grow in Christ, we dare not do what comes so naturally—namely, say we believe that the verdict over our lives is decisively settled in our justified status before God but then move on to other ideas and strategies when it comes to our emotional lives and daily pressures. For if we do, we will find our lives riddled with fear. We will be paralyzed with anxieties, because we will be afraid that our functional god will condemn us - not justify us - if we fail it. We are fearful of not succeeding in a job, or not impressing someone we respect, or botching the date, or failing the test, or missing the shot. We fantasize about succeeding in those real-life situations and have nightmares about failing. Why? Because we treat the gospel as the ignition but not the sustaining reality to our inner life. We are not walking "in step with the truth of the gospel." We haven't let the radioactive nature of the doctrine of justification by faith destroy our malignant need for human approval. Sensing our inadequacy, we set up our career, our relationships, our studies, our public speaking, our athletic abilities as functional gods to which we are looking for justification - to know we're okay.
But what if we went into the interview, the conversation, the classroom, the game, already okay? Already justified. Not just theologically but emotionally. Not just in our mind but in our gut. We would be world shakers.
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