Are you a pretender?

Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was “trying to be good,” I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a pretender. (Galatians 2:17-18 MSG)

We are not yet perfect. Man, that is certainly true on my account! I do a decent job at 'doing the right thing' most of the time, but ALL of the time - nope. I slip up on occasion - say things I shouldn't, think things I know better than to be thinking, make judgments based on what I see or think I know, and the list could go on. The point is that we ALL are not yet perfect - none of us has it all together or is without sin. Even those religious leaders who wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery couldn't throw the first stone because none of them were without fault (John 8:7-8).

We go 'through Christ' to get things made right with God the Father - there is no shame in admitting our need of one to stand in the gap that sin caused between us and God. There is also no shame in admitting we aren't always obedient - this change that was begun within us at the moment we said yes to Jesus can take a bit of time. We might think we have no further growth potential, but if we are in Christ Jesus the growth NEVER stops. We change from glory to glory - from one form of obedience to the next form of obedience. The change never ends - the grace never does either.

Sometimes I think we are guilty of trying to 'rebuild old barns' by going back to the 'performance-based religion' we have heard about or knew in our past. We think we need to do this or that in order for God to take us onto the next 'level of growth', but if we have obedient hearts and willing spirits, we are already growing as God intends. We don't need all the religious works, methodologies, or rituals. We need humble and contrite hearts, open minds, and obedient trust. The old man is dead, and a new creation stands in its place. If I tried to put on some of my old clothes from my high school days they wouldn't fit. Why? The body isn't the same any longer. In much the same way, when we try to go back to 'religion' in place of relationship with Jesus, we find it doesn't 'fit' any longer.

We'd be pretending to be right with God rather than living as right with God. We don't want to go through life as 'pretenders' in a spiritual sense, do we? We want the real deal, and Christ offers it to anyone willing to follow him with all their heart, mind, body, and spirit. Just sayin!