Jeff Adams

Vince Lombardi

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi is quoted as having said, “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.” There is some good wisdom in that saying. Doing something sloppily over and over for hours on end does not make you better; it only establishes your ability to do something in a perfectly sloppy manner.

Some followers of Jesus Christ think that just because they have been walking with God for many years that makes them mature. Not necessarily so! A walk of faith does not depend on how long or hard you do something. If you are an immature, whinny, self-centered little Christian and persist in that day-after-day for many years, you will only become really good at being an immature, whinny, self-centered little Christian. You’ll get so good at it, in fact, that you won’t even have to think about it. It will just come naturally.

These are the people who make a profession of faith in Christ and yet never grow, or grow only so far. Living life as God intends for us to live is not a matter of trying harder or longer. It is a matter of knowing truth and living out life on the basis of that truth.

In his little third letter, John tells his disciple Gaius how thrilled he was to hear the report that Gaius was a man who not only had the truth in him, he also walked in truth.

Jesus Christ is the truth (John 14:6) and his word is truth (John 17:17). Some people try to live by the truth, but do not have the truth in them. Some have the truth in them, but choose not to live it out. Some people know a lot about the Bible, but they don’t know the Savior. Some know the Savior, but are hopelessly adrift in life because they are ignorant of the truth of scripture. Put it together – life as God intends involves an element of knowledge and it also involves a relational element.

Growth must occur in both elements – knowledge and relationship. Without this you can “practice your faith” as long as you want and you’ll remain the same. You’ll just get better at being immature.

You can learn a lot of knowledge about the Bible and not grow in your relationship to God and others. Keep at this for a long time and you’ll become an obnoxious, preachy, holier-than-thou Bible bigot. Or, you can become obsessed with worship, praise, relationships, feelings and sensitivity, yet remain virtually ignorant of the Bible. Keep at this for a long time and you’ll become a silly, irrelevant, spiritual airhead.

Peter, at the conclusion 0f his second letter, admonishes us to grow. He also tells us what this should look like. We are to grow in grace, and we are to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Here again are the elements of knowledge and relationship.

Jesus brings both elements together. John’s Gospel (1:17) says that he is full of grace and truth. Grace is the relational part, because grace is something that comes from outside of ourselves. Theologians say that grace is unmerited favor – what we cannot earn or do for ourselves.

John’s Gospel also says that the law came by Moses. What Moses said was truth. The problem was that no one was capable of living out that truth. The law bears witness of God’s righteousness. However, there is none righteous, no not one.

This changed with Jesus. The one who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2Corinthians 5:21). We now have the capacity to live out truth because we have a relationship with the truth (Jesus Christ) who lives in us and through us.

Not long ago I said that growth has three key components – grace, truth and time. Time is essential, but without grace and truth, time is just, well … time.

Grace comes from relationships outside of ourselves. First and foremost, of course, is our relationship with God. However, Peter also said (1Peter 4:10) that we minister grace to each other as believers according to the gift we have each received. Just as Jesus was the human representation of truth (the Living Word), God is busy dispensing grace today through his people in whom his Spirit and truth dwell. We don’t get grace by digging down deeper into our own selves; we get grace from God and as God uses others.

Grace, truth and time. You don’t need a balanced mix; you need all three – and you need all of all of them.

Today was the day I had my weekly meeting with my Life Team. I always hate to miss this time to get together because I always seem to learn something new as we share the issues and challenges we are facing in life. We don’t necessarily have a Bible study; we share what we are learning from the study of the Bible. At the same time I get a lot of grace!

In the next installment I’ll pick it up from here,  something I call the “cumulative effect.”