Embracing Shortcomings

In Colossians 2:6-7, we are told that we should walk out our Christian life in just the same manner as we received salvation. In effect, what Paul is saying is that living the Christian life requires the same thing from us that salvation did.

What is that? Surrender.

The key to salvation is an act on our part to surrender ourselves to God. We no longer rely on our abilities or our worthiness to achieve salvation. We understand that it is only by His work that we are saved.

The same is true in the spiritual life. We can try to accomplish many things by our own efforts, but true success occurs when we surrender and allow God to accomplish in us what only He can do.

Too often, because we do not yet trust Him fully, we rely on our own efforts to grow spiritually. As we do, God will often show us the many areas in which we fall short of what He desires. Sadly, we may understand this revelation as a demand by the Lord that we work harder. In fact, He is trying to show us how incapable we are of true righteousness so that we will finally yield to Him and let Him work that righteousness in us.

When we do this, we are truly working out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who is at work in us (Philippians 2:12-13). We can also embrace our shortcomings and delight in our weakness. We have finally discovered the truth that when we are weak, He is indeed strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Too much of Western Christianity more closely resembles a self-help program or a how-to manual, and too little of it calls to us to fall on our knees and cry out to the Lord as our only hope. But if we are to be truly spiritual, the road involves surrender, not accomplishment.