As a Christian, at the end of a long day (when I have done what I ought not to have done – and not done what I ought to have done) what are God’s thoughts of me when I lay down my head at at night and fall asleep?
You come to your Father through Jesus Christ, who is seated on a throne of grace, to confess your failures of the day but thank him for his fatherly care and his many great and precious promises. He knows and loves you as his dear child. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us. Read Psalm 4.
As sons and daughters of the Father, our identity is defined by who we are in Christ. Apostles often address immature churches as saints, beloved, chosen and holy. Our relationships with the Trinity define who we are, not good or bad deeds. Even though our behavior does not define us, it demonstrates who we are, and to whom we belong. Therefore, Paul reminded Romans that grace is not the reason to indulge in sin (Rom 6:1-2). At times our day finishes with groanings, but even in that, we are not alone, because the Spirit is groaning with us in our prayers. The bottom line is whether I am in Christ or I am still in Adam, the old man.
God views the regenerate as his justified and adopted child. The Lord delights in your obedience, imperfect though it be, because he sees you as one with Christ, the Righteous One. God forgives your disobedience, though displeasing to him, because he sees you as one with Christ, who is the propitiation of our sins. He disciplines his children to make them share in his holiness, but not to condemn them.
Well, thankfully Christians aren’t adjunct professors: if we profess Jesus Christ in faith, we have tenure! So I don’t have to worry about getting fired, as it were. I believe in the perseverance of the saints, which is to say, in God’s preservation of the saints. Of course, this isn’t a “Get out of Jail free” card. But it’s important to realize, with Calvin, that the salvation is first and foremost our union with Christ, and that this union carries with it the double blessing of justification and sanctification. Our adoption as God’s children is secure in Christ, but we know that the Father disciplines those whom he loves, so this side of heaven we have to work out our own salvation in godly fear, but it is God who works in us to perfect us in Christ (cf. Phil. 2:12-13).
It is good to reflect on the day that is past, to acknowledge and confess our sins, and then go confidently to sleep knowing that God promises forgiveness and the power of his Holy Spirit to guide and help us on the morrow. God looks at his own in and through Christ; our identity comes from our participation in his death and resurrection. That does not change from one day to the next.
God teaches us about what he wants in many ways, and one of the most significant is the instruction he gives us in prayer. We have mentioned the Lord’s Prayer, in which he teaches us to ask or “petition” him for things. He wants us to ask for his kingdom to come and his will to be done. But he also wants us to know that he cares about the provision of our “daily bread,” or physical needs. And not just that, he cares about our spiritual needs too: the forgiveness we need from him and from others, the reconciliation we need from him and from others. God loves us and so he wants all this and more for us.
He weeps for you. He still loves you. He waits for you to discover how you are robbing yourself of the good life. When you realize this and repent of your sins, rededicating yourself to him, he will embrace and bless you again.
In Christ, that is, in terms of my position in him, having had his righteousness imputed or reckoned to me through faith alone, God is always and eternally pleased with me, delighted with me, and sings over me in joy (Zeph. 3:17). But when it comes to my daily experience, to whatever extent I disobey or trust and treasure something or someone above him, I displease him and grieve his heart. There is, then, a huge difference between my eternal union with God, on the one hand, in which I am his beloved child whom he loves without conditions, and my experiential communion with God, on the other hand, in which I can either experience joyful fellowship and intimacy or, because of unrepentant sin, languish under the conviction wrought by the Holy Spirit and the disciplinary hand of a loving Father who seeks to turn me back to himself and to righteousness.
For those of us in Christ, we are washed clean by the blood of the Lamb. God sees us clothed in Christ’s righteousness – His perfection, not our own – which means that God sees me as His beloved child. The words He spoke over Jesus at His baptism – “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” – are the words that He speaks over those of us who belong to Jesus. God loves us and is pleased with us because of what Jesus has done for us. At the same time, the righteousness we are clothed in isn’t just a fiction or a falsehood. God begins to sanctify us, which means that He works in our hearts to make us holy, so that our salvation becomes to get “worked out.” He does a work in our hearts, and then that work comes out in our lives, so that we gradually begin to look more and more like Jesus in how we live and act and speak. We have days where we look more like Jesus than others, and God as a good Father sometimes disciplines us when we fail, not to punish us, but to grow us up until we look more like Jesus. That’s His goal for us, and that’s our great hope.
Fides quaerens intellectum † Faith seeking understanding † Aithfay eekingsay understandingya
