Of Books, and Words Underlined

excerpt from "Seeking the Face of God" by Gary Thomas...

"...'We do not keep ourselves by our own power', Pascal wrote, (in our own strength), 'we have only the counterbalance of two opposing vices, just as we stay upright between two contrary winds. Take one of these vices away, and' (in our own strength), 'we fall into the other.'

What did Pascal mean by this? A man or woman who works very hard may simply be avoiding the sin of laziness by being filled with selfish ambition or greed. Remove his or her hunger for more money and this person will immediately become as lazy as any of us.

Others might be very disciplined around food. They would be the last persons on earth you would label as gluttons. Yet they are disciplined around food because they want to have a physique that will draw attention to themselves, not because they don't want food to have a hold on their hearts and steal their affection for God. They may be free from gluttony only because they are slaves to vanity.

Do you see how we play vice against vice - using vanity to destroy gluttony, for instance - and are upheld by the struggle of two sins? This is a much different holiness than the ancients' view of a transforming passion that gives birth to virtue. On and on we could go, showing how 90 percent of our virtue is a sham, a vice wearing a coat and tie. That is why Jesus constantly pointed us to the heart..."

Reading this yet again today, I found myself rejoicing over the grace of God. In the gospel, I have been made the righteousness of God in Christ. No longer do I have to lean on my own understanding, depend on my own human performance, or compare myself to anyone else. I am certain that I am quite imperfect in the estimation of a friend or spouse or child or employer, but none of those people are God. In the estimation of God, I am fully accepted in the Beloved Son.

The gospel of this radical, divine love, as displayed in the finished work of Jesus, is the transforming passion that gives birth to true virtue....grace alone gives birth to accomplishments of any eternal value. He only is "Maker". I can not make of myself anything resembling true virtue. I have set a trumpet to my mouth in this regard, and intend to use it to make a clear and certain sound...trumpeting New Covenant glory...until I leave this earth for heaven, where I will take it up again for the same reason.

90 percent of "my" virtue is a sham. Thank God for the gift of the righteousness of God through Christ.