Performance Treadmill

Hi


I thought I would share some thoughts that have been of great release to me in my Christian walk and also just as challenging.

The easiest way to summarise it is I have been trying to work through the following Question,

How am I going to live in a God Pleasing and Glorifying way today?

I know that if we were all to be asked do we want to live that way today we would in the blink of an eye say darn right or maybe Amen or yes even. However that is a totally different question to How am I going to do that! I have to say that with the help of a nice wee book called Transforming Grace by Jerry Bridges, I have become aware of danger of what he Calls the "Performance Treadmill".

Bridges looks at the 3 stages of our Christian lives, Salvation, Life after salvation and then life in eternity, or if you want the theological terms, Justification, Sanctification and Glorification. He makes the point that we all sound Evangelical Christians would agree that we are both saved by Grace and enter in to heaven by grace but how do we live our lives between the 2?

It is Bridges premise that we our natural sinful predisposition to legalism often ends up with us trying to earn our growth in God, or blessings, or even answers to prayer. That well known feeling to us all I am sure, of when we have been "good" and read our bibles daily and prayed and even put out the bin for the next door neighbour we have this sense of invincibility that God is soooo pleased with us and will surely be itching to shower blessings on us. However, just as familiar I am sure is the feeling of woe that comes with giving in to that so familiar temptation and how we want to hide from God and feel unworthy or of no use to Him at all, until, that is, we are "good again for a while, and there you have it, you are on the performance treadmill.

Bridges has a good way of helping us check our hearts, and suggests that we think of the following scenario, if we have fallen to that old familiar sin that is our battle, and then in the next minute had the perfect opportunity to witness for God to our long time friend, would we do so with gusto and faith or would we maybe even pass it up due to our failure before God and His disapproval with us. If you can relate to this then as Bridges says you better check you are not living on the performance treadmill.

Well, how do we live our lives between Salvation and Heaven? How do we live today for the glory and pleasure of God? Well it is the answer to that question that has been so liberating and challenging to me recently, you live it by the same faith in God's Grace that Saved you, and that you believe will see you through to Heaven. You look to eternity and then look to your heart, feel that faith that believes that by the Grace of God you will one day spend eternity in heaven, it is that same Faith you are to live for Christ today. Believing that by the Grace of Jesus Christ and the grace for today he supplies you can live for Him.

I now wake up and each morning look at the day ahead and acknowledge that I am bankrupt before a holy God, and that even the good things I would attempt are as filthy rags, I then throw myself on His grace believing that through the cross Jesus' grace will enable me to be more like Him the same way I throw myself on His grace for the forgiveness of my sins and for my Hope of eternity with him.

Why don't we this Easter resolve to live in the power of God's Grace. Gal 2:20-21

Jim