Rising To The Occasion

Just about done reading The Practice of Godliness by Jerry Bridges. It has been a thoroughly enjoyable and thought provoking read. One point in the chapter on kindness and goodness stood out more than the rest for me, centering on this passage in Scripture:

⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Ephesians 2:8-10 (NASB)

We are created to do good, wired for it, and we should seek to do it for the glory of God. But the interesting point is that we are to walk in them, giving the sense of them becoming part of our everyday life, not some special thing we rise to the occasion of doing.

I think it is easier for us to do good in the mission field as opposed to the marketplace, on a battlefield instead of our backyard. Maybe it is pride, we rise to the occasion when we sense the heat of a spotlight on us, no matter how dim. We can go and model Christ on a mission trip or in a ministry, but let's face it, others know what we are doing and why. Can we model Him as easily when we go to buy a quart of milk or grab a bite at a local restaurant when we are just ourselves in our everyday existence? I am not sure I warm up to the good works of Jesus as easily when the warmth of the spotlight is not heating me up. Seems to me a bit of a pride issue that I have like a lot of others.

Rising to the occasion of doing good, in walking in good works create din Christ Jesus should be like rising from bed in the morning. You do it as part of your everyday life.

You should do it with about as much ceremony as getting out of bed. Maybe it is not always the praise inducing, ceremonial occurrence, but you get it down each and every day.

A Year With The Institutes - 1.8.1-4

Continuing with my reading of the Institutes, this section from today's reading focused for me the beauty of the Bible:

Now this power which is peculiar to Scripture is clear from the fact that of human writings, however artfully polished, there is none capable of affecting us at all comparably. Read Demosthenes or Cicero; read Plato, Aristotle, and others of that tribe. They will, I admit, allure you, delight you, move you, enrapture you in wonderful measure. But betake yourself from them to this sacred reading. Then, in spite of yourself, so deeply will it affect you, so penetrate your heart, so fix itself in your very marrow, that, compared with its deep impression, such vigor as the orators and philosophers have will nearly vanish. Consequently, it is easy to see that the Sacred Scriptures, which so far surpass all gifts and graces of human endeavor, breathe something divine.

The Institutes of The Christian Religion Book One, Chapter 8.1

I have read through the Bible several times, and I never tire of it. Never will. I cannot say that for any other book I have read, no matter how much I enjoy them. Take The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. I have read it, since college, maybe 5 or 6 times, usually with a several year period between readings. I could not finish it, then start it all over reading it again right away. And I love LOTR.

Put the Bible away for several years and not read it? Are you kidding? As soon as I finish it, I am looking at how I want to read through it again. Only the divine word of God could move me so. No other book could make me eager to come to school, attend a lecture, waiting to mine the next nugget out of an infinite store of wisdom.

If you are not reading the Bible everyday, start. If you have not read entirely through it, either cover to cover or with a plan that hops around but schedules out the entire book, do it. Just Google "Bible reading plans" and see what you get to work from.

You may not agree with Calvin on everything, you may not agree with him on anything. But at the very least, you will have to admit that he got this one right.