God's grace is sufficient for you

“He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:16–20)

In the Christian faith, there are many beliefs that on the surface seem at odds with one another but must be held in tension in order to have a true and robust faith. God is one, yet three. Jesus is fully man and fully God. The Bible is God’s Word written by humans.

There is another tension that must be held when it comes to our discipleship, one that came to mind as I prepared to preach this past Sunday’s sermon. I was preaching on Isaiah 29:13, which reads “The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.’” I used this passage to talk about performative religion, the ways in which we can mistakenly believe that God is impressed by our religious words, heritage, or superstition, when the truth is that God wants our heart’s devotion to Him. The greatest commandment, according to Jesus, is to “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’” (Matthew 22:37). And as we read in 2 Chronicles 16:9, “The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”

Clearly, God wants a sincere, heart-level commitment to Him. But the other aspect of our discipleship, which must be held in tension, is best seen in Luke 15, the story of the prodigal son. In that story, the younger son, who has disrespected his father by asking for his inheritance before his father has even died, and who has then squandered all of his inheritance in wild living, can only find a job feeding pigs. He comes to his senses and realizes that even his father’s hired servants have food to spare, and so he decides to head home, to ask his father for forgiveness, and to ask his father to consider hiring him as a hired servant. And his father, upon seeing his son a long way off, runs to him, embraces him, and welcomes him home as his forgiven son.

Jesus tells this story to proclaim the extravagant grace of God towards sinners and to challenge the religious leaders who are listening to show the same grace. But one of the aspects of the story that seems clear to me is that the only reason the son even considered coming home to his father was because his money and food ran out. His repentance was prompted by an empty stomach, not by a sincere sorrow over the disrespect he had shown to his father. And yet, despite his mixed motives and impure heart, the father received him back as his restored son.

The tension I see in our discipleship is this: on the one hand, we must keep in mind that God wants our whole-hearted, sincere commitment to Him. But on the other hand, His grace is sufficient to cover our half-hearted attempts and our mixed motives. For example. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9:7 that “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” I used to see this verse as an excuse not to give; after all, if I’m not cheerful, if I’m not sincere of heart in my giving, then isn’t it better not to give? But I think that is a misreading of Paul’s exhortation. God’s desire is that we would give cheerfully, knowing that He will supply all we need and that by giving, we are participating in His generous heart for His children. But if we lack cheerfulness, we should still give, because it is the right thing to do, and because often it is by giving that we learn that, as Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Or, as another example, make it your goal to spend time daily with the Lord in heart-level devotion to Him. But if you feel at times that you are just going through the motions, the answer is not to give up meeting with Him, as if He is angry with you for your half-hearted efforts. Keep seeking Him with whatever you have to offer, and ask Him to help you be more sincere.

The bottom line is this: do what God has commanded – gather together with other believers, pray, worship, give, repent of sin, etc. Strive to do it all with a heart-level devotion, but do not let a lack of pure motives stop you from obeying Him. Just as the Father ran out to embrace His prodigal Son, His perfect love and grace are sufficient for you as well.