Genuine?

I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago that I had been dreading and fearing for some time regarding sin my life that I have been working through. It was a hard conversation to have for a lot of reasons, but probably chief among them was the wounding of my own pride when it was pointed out to me that the motive behind my attempts to "get right" with God wasn't really getting right with him at all.

For some time now I have felt like a prodigal that can't get home - like no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't reconnect with God. I couldn't get back that sense of being right in his sight. I felt condemned and doomed.

It was pointed out to me that I was not, in fact, the younger prodigal son in the parable. I was the older son. The son who stayed home and worked silently but resentfully and pridefully, expecting to earn his father's estate. Not only that, but he was enraged when he saw grace poured out by his father toward his brother.

The father's response to his older son in the parable is eye-opening:

"Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours."

I was pondering this idea - that I was the older brother and not the younger - on my drive to work the next morning. To be honest, I was more than a little discouraged at hearing that; I was angry. I felt like I was being kicked when I was down. Why couldn't people just understand that I was cautious about moving forward with applying the Gospel to this area of my life because I wanted to be sure that my heart and motives were genuine? Surely it wouldn't be right to just rush blindly to a quick writing-off of my sins and ignore the seriousness of my transgressions.

I drove northbound in the darkness, sipping coffee and thinking over these things in great detail, asking myself questions to try and clarify where I was at with everything. One simple question stopped me cold: Why is it so important to me that I feel genuine about this? That seems to be holding me up not just now, but all the time in situations like this - what is so important about being "genuine" - and what does that even mean?

And as I passed the exit for Northgate Mall, it hit me.

It's important to me because I feel that if I'm genuine, God owes me a response. If I'm genuine, he can't just ignore me like I feel he does so often. It puts me in control.

It was one of the defining eureka moments of my life - a precious revelation from the Holy Spirit. It was one of those moments in which suddenly so much of your life - and so much of what you need to do in the future - becomes obvious and brilliantly clear. The logical consequences of this realization - that my desire for genuineness was essentially rooted in pride and in my desire to control God's redemption of me - spilled over me with all the refreshing relief of a waterfall. It was one of those moments when you know that the realization you've just had is going to affect the rest of your entire life. My thought process rushed.

As though your genuineness matters here, Matt? Do you think Paul was genuinely interested in finding God while traveling on the road to Damascus? No - quite the opposite. Isn't God able and willing to work with your heart where you're at right now, even if you're confused about where exactly that is? Doesn't God save sinners in his great providence and mercy, despite their filth? Didn't Christ die for us while we were yet sinners? Do you REALLY think you have to have it all figured out - to completely change and transform yourself - before you can come home? How can you even be transformed if you don't GO home?

And I instantly knew what I had to do. I instantly understood why repentance in this case meant taking a hold of my identity in Jesus. I was so struck that I said it out loud to an empty car.

"I don't have to do this anymore," I said softly. "I don't have to do this anymore!"

The excitement built as the full weight of a suddenly clear understanding of the Gospel spilled over. "You know what? I'm done! I'm done wallowing in pride-soaked despair about my state. I am adopted! I am accepted! And I am already home! I'm paid for! It's done!" - shouting now - "MY SIN DIED WITH JESUS CHRIST 2,000 YEARS AGO ON A CROSS. It's DONE and that person is DEAD and there is therefore now no condemnation for me in Christ Jesus!"

We see God's attitude toward the prideful, self-righteous sinner in the father's response to the older son: "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." In other words, as we fret about not being "fixed" enough to come back into God's presence, not being "good" enough to stand before him, he lovingly reminds us: "Son, you're already mine. You never really left home, and everything I have is already yours."

What an amazing truth to think about.

When I got home from work that evening I took a dry-erase marker and scrawled in block letters across the top of my bathroom mirror:

THE OLD MATT IS DEAD.

And I went to bed in peace. I slept - to borrow a phrase my pastor uses - like a Calvinist.

I look at those big block letters each morning now as I brush my teeth. I later copied a passage from Ephesians 2 on the mirror next to it and am working on memorizing it:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience -- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved -- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

I am so, so thankful that my standing before God has absolutely nothing to do with the person that I am or the things I have done or will do. That is the Gospel. That is what Jesus is about. My behavior, my so-called "good deeds" have absolutely nothing to do with how God sees me. I am a wicked man who is clothed only in the righteousness that Jesus has given me. He traded my rags for his robes.

And that knowledge brings a kind of security and peace that I cannot describe. I have not only not felt fearful or condemned since that day, but the particular temptation that once ensnared me like a vice is now completely gone. Gone.

I was walking through the distribution center at work today and was thinking about that. I couldn't help but smile. I thought to myself, I'm free. I'm free, and it's all because of You.

That's the God I know.