The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can't Get Their Act Together

by Jared C. Wilson

You introduce the truth of Romans 8 to every corner of the room, every dark place in your heart, as often as you can, as much as you can, as fiercely as you can.

You and I need tuning up in the gospel every day.

Do you know why there are a thousand fresh self-help books every year? It’s because they don’t work.

We keep looking for the answer within us, as if we’ll find it in the same place as the problems.

When our vision is constantly occupied by small things, we are tempted to yawn more at the glory of God.

See, what you’re focused on will shape you, lead you. The spiritual dynamic

I have shamelessly stolen the title of this chapter from my friend Ray Ortlund, who once exhorted his congregation to “stare at the glory of God until you see it.”

Charles Spurgeon would go into his prayer closet and not leave until he felt the love of God. This needs to be me. I need to sit in his presence and wait for him. I need to sit and not leave until I feel his love. I need to behold the glory until I actually see the glory.

There’s insufficient glory in the law of God to empower us to obey it.

This is why, as odd as it sounds, making your entire Christian life about trying to look like a good Christian is a great way to become a terrible Christian. Or at least a weak and defeated one.

We think we know what will do the job of making us holy: us doing the job of making us holy. And seeking holiness is integral to discipleship. But more central to our discipleship is the news that actually makes Christianity Christianity: we are holy not because of what we’ve done but because of what Jesus has done.

This is why the good news is so good! The essential message of Christianity isn’t “do” but “done.” The good news is news, not instruction, and it announces to us not “get to work” but “it is finished.”

This change comes through the cross—Christ’s cross becoming my cross. What is better? To be warring all our life in Romans 7, denying our urges and not feeling good inside, or doing what we feel is right simply because it feels good, or at least better? One voice answers the latter, and it strokes the ear. The other strikes terror sometimes—okay, many times—but it takes us from Romans 7 to Romans 8.

To be gospel-centered is not to be law-avoiding. As Dallas Willard says, “Grace is not opposed to effort, but is opposed to earning.”2 So it’s not about “letting go and letting God” or some other similarly sincere but shallow spiritual hooey.

What is the use of telling a guy in bare feet to pull himself up by his bootstraps?

We are not holy because we work. We work because we are holy.

If we don’t get this order right, we don’t get Christianity right. And we will always struggle with the so-called spiritual disciplines—struggle against them, even.

Pastor and author John Ortberg writes, “We suffer from what has come to be known as ‘hurry sickness.’ One of the great illusions of our day is that hurrying will buy us more time.”

In essence, we chuck prayer because the results of prayerlessness are not immediately felt or seen.