December 20
December 20
What God wants for you is better than anything you could want for yourself, but it is impossible to achieve it on your own.
Imagine you are in a gym with a forty-foot ceiling, and the owner of the gym tells you that the most wonderful thing you could ever do would be to jump and touch the ceiling. The task seems impossible, but you begin to jump. The more you jump, the weaker your jumps get and the more you are confronted with the fact that the most wonderful thing you could aspire to is utterly, humanly impossible for you. As you stand there exhausted and facing the limits of your humanity, what do you think you would do next?
Because God is perfectly holy in every way and all of the time, it is impossible for him to ask anything of us that isn’t for our good. What he wants for us is wonderful in every way. There is no downside to his will. There are no hidden negatives in his plan for us. There is no dark payoff coming. What God calls us to is eternally good in every way. But here’s what we have to face: what God calls us to is utterly and completely impossible. It is infinitely more impossible than the impossibility of my gym illustration. We do not have the natural wisdom or power to accomplish what God calls us to. His will for us is the ultimate impossible calling. Are you confused? The apostle Peter alerts us to the five-million-foot ceiling that God calls us to touch:
Preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Pet. 1:13–16)
This passage confronts us with our inability to be what God has designed us to be and do what he has called us to do. First, I have no ability to escape the sinful passions of my heart on my own. I can run from a situation, location, relationship, or temptation, but I have no ability to run from my own heart. Second, I have no power on my own to be holy as God is holy. How does God demonstrate his holiness? In everything he does. He is always perfectly holy in every way. Here is the core tension of the gospel. I have no ability to do what God calls me to, and God has no willingness to lower his standard. This tension has been resolved in the person and work of Jesus. He was perfectly holy in my place, and by grace he empowers me to grow in his holy likeness. God doesn’t curse me because of my inability, but meets me with the forgiving and empowering grace of his Son.