Grace Will Lead Me Home
How we can be renewed by God's Word
Near the end of Tolkien’s Return of the King, two characters – Sam and Frodo – are in one of the darkest stages of their journey. They’ve been alone deep in enemy territory for weeks, with little food or water and constant danger. Their surroundings, both earth and sky, are polluted by the shadow of their enemy’s power. Their lives are burdened by fear. But one night, Sam sees something that changes him:
Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. … He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.
Sam has a glimpse of a star shining over the shadow that seems to cover their world. He doesn’t do anything other than see it; but the sight, and the reminder it sparks in his soul, renews him. He rests without fear and awakens refreshed in the morning.
Living God’s Word takes action. Putting off the old self, or repenting, is an act of will; and so is “putting on” the new life we’ve received in Christ. Paul gives them to the Colossians as commands to be obeyed. That “long obedience in the same direction”1 and the fight against our own flesh it entails can be exhausting.
But between those commands, Paul includes this curious statement:
You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. – Colossians 3:9-10, emphasis added
He doesn’t say, “You’ve put on the new self, which was renewed.” He says our new self “is being renewed.” In other words, as we’re actively working out the Christian life, God is actively working in us to make the Christian life possible.
If you are in Christ, you weren’t just saved by grace and pointed in the right direction with the promise God would be waiting at the finish line. You’re being perpetually renewed by grace. God is restoring you along the way; he’s giving you ongoing strength, guidance, and correction to keep moving in the right direction. In the words of “Amazing Grace:”
Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home
God’s grace has brought you this far. It’s going to take you the rest of the way.
What are the ways we can be renewed or restored through God’s Word?
We can be reminded of God’s character and promises.
In the book of Lamentations, Jeremiah writes from the depths of despair. His people have been conquered and dragged to other lands; the government, Temple, and land of Jerusalem have been destroyed; “I have forgotten what happiness is,” he writes. But then something changes:
But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:21-24)
Jeremiah remembers that their circumstances have changed, but God’s character never does. Life as he knew it has ended; but God’s love never will. And if God is his inheritance – “my portion” – no army can take that away. Jeremiah is renewed by remembering God’s unchanging character.
If a passage of Scripture reminds you of God’s character, it can restore your soul to meditate on that. His sovereignty, his power, his holiness and his love can be life-giving bread that sustains us in our journey.
We can believe the gospel afresh.
After decades of fruitful ministry, nearing the end of his life, the apostle Paul wrote to his disciple Timothy:
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. (1 Timothy 1:15)
Paul doesn’t say “sinners, of whom I was the foremost,” but “of whom I am the foremost.” This veteran apostle, with years of faithfulness on his record, is celebrating the fact that Jesus came into the world to save sinners like him.
Tim Keller has said that the gospel – the good news that God saves sinners through Jesus – isn’t the ABCs of the Christian life, but the A through Z. Our life with Christ doesn’t start with believing the gospel and then depend on our willpower; that’s a road either to self-righteous pride (if we can deceive ourselves into thinking we’re not sinners), or to despair (when we see ourselves fail and struggle). Rather, Christianity is a life of “re-believing” the gospel in ever deeper ways. Seeing how deeply sinful we are, and also being encouraged by remembering how deeply God loves us.
If a passage of Scripture leads you to God’s grace for sinners, don’t skim over it with “been there, believed that.” Contemplate the sin you still see in your life, after all these years, and rejoice in the fact that God’s not surprised or turned away by it: he loves you every bit as much as he did in the honeymoon or mountaintop stages you’ve had. You’re still the foremost of sinners, and God has still made you his beloved son. Your righteousness is still a used menstrual cloth, and God has still made you his glorious bride. That truth will renew you to keep living the Word faithfully.
We can be filled by God’s Spirit.
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (the apostle Paul, in Romans 8:15-17)
When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit – the third Person of the Trinity – fills our souls, like God’s presence filled the Tabernacle and the Temple. As Paul writes above, the Spirit doesn’t just make us holy; on this side of Jesus’ work, the Spirit also makes us sons of God.
And there’s a sense in which this presence never changes: the Spirit is never more or less with us, from the day we believe until the day we die. But our experience of God’s presence can change. From the day I married my wife, we’ve never been more or less married; but our sense of intimacy and love can vary. So it is with God. Sometimes, God removes or mutes our sense of his presence, and nothing we do can change that. But often, we don’t sense the Spirit because we’re not really trying. We’re too busy doing, thinking about, or desiring other things. I’ve heard the analogy of a sunflower and the sun: the sun may or may not be shining, but if the sunflower is closed and drooping, it won’t benefit from sunlight even if the sun is out.
A passage of Scripture might strike us with the need to sit and listen. To open ourselves to God’s Spirit. He may speak or give a sense of his presence; or we may just be restored by composing our souls to hear him. We can experience God in a way that renews our souls.
We can be strengthened by God’s promises.
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (Jesus, in John 16:33)
The early Christians were somewhat mysterious to pagan Romans. Their rituals were obscure – there were rumors of cannibalism, because they ate the flesh and drank the blood of their Savior. They were suspected of incest because they called one another “brother” and “sister.” Their obstinate insistence that a crucified Jew was God and their flouting the social barriers between classes were puzzling.
But one thing was clear: they died well. When arrested, they spent their jail time praying. When threatened with execution, they refused to change. When brought to the arena to be killed by soldiers or wild animals, they were as likely to be singing hymns as anything else.
What enabled that was their unshakeable faith not only that Jesus had risen from the dead, but that they would too. That we are eternal beings, faced with the terrible threat of eternal life under the wrath of God, but offered the incredible promise of eternal bliss under his loving face. They were sustained by God’s promises.
God’s promises can give us strength and joy to live the Christian life, like the promise of a billion-dollar inheritance could relieve us of financial anxiety forever. In the memorable words of C.S. Lewis:
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.2
If you find a promise of God to his people or a shadow or vision of what will come, meditating on that promise can renew your soul. It can remind you that “joy will come in the morning,” or that God will never forsake you if he has chosen you. It can strengthen you to repent of a cherished sin, to obey a hard command, or to keep living a tough daily calling. God’s promises strengthen us to live for him.
from the book of that title by Eugene Peterson
from “The Weight of Glory”