The Grip of The Gospel

This past November I was reading Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest and was struck by this quote:

"The thing that awakens the deepest well of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven sin. When once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you , you will be held as in a vice constrained by the love of God."

My mind immediately went to memories of my grandfather working in his shop. He was always tinkering with some sort of metal object that needed bending or shaping. He would take it over to his old rusty vise and crank it down nice and tight. Then he'd take his ball pin hammer and wail away on it until he obtained his desired result.

I would then go over and try it on for size. Finding an old scrap of metal, I would put it in the vise , muster up all the power of my 70 pound frame and bang on it until my ears rang. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the thing to let loose - which probably saved me from a good many shrapnel wounds. I couldn't help but be continually amazed at the grip that thing had.

The vise grip of the Gospel is the beginning of every person's story who is an authentic Christian. Though the method of delivery is different for everyone, all are gripped by the truth that they are in a hopeless situation because of their sin and out of His absolute goodness, God gave them (through Christ) a free gift of forgiveness. This is the Gospel - the good news.

Christian conversion via this gospel secures a surrender of our mind, will, and emotions such that we are lovingly constrained as in a spiritual vice. This is essential seeing as how life is going to come at us like a wild eyed junior higher with a ball pin hammer. Recently, a scripture about the centrality of the gospel in our Christian walk came to my attention. It's in Hebrews 13 and says "It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace." Implying that it may not be the best idea to seek strength from other (graceless) sources.

These other sources? Anything relating to performance comes to mind. As a pastor, I often find myself enslaved to an approval cycle. Feeling on top of the world on Sunday (if things go well) and then in a pit of despair on Monday when it's just me and God in silence. When I get in these patterns, the road out of them is always the same - go back to the gospel.

You don't have to be a pastor to fall into these cycles. The default of every human heart is to go back to earning our way into the good favor of God. A heart that draws strength primarily from consistent Bible reading, effective evangelism, intimate worship experiences . . . is headed for a manic-depressive spirituality that is going to end in some serious burnout. Unless, of course, these activities are a means to seeing and savoring (that's a John Piper) the gospel that gripped us in the first place.

Everything that we do on this side of conversion is a response of praise, thanksgiving, worship if you will for the free gift of grace given to us in the Christ event. So as we begin our road down a list of characteristics and skills to be sought after by leaders. Let's start with and stay with the most important - to be firmly constrained in the grip of the Gospel.

*This article is part of an ongoing series of articles about leadership