Burn Your White Flags (Hebrews)Sýnishorn

I remember the first time we let our six year old choose where we would go out for dinner. 

His eyes lit up with joy and wonder. He was overwhelmed in the most beautiful way with the weight of one of the most important decisions of his life. 

It was also a proud moment for us because he chose exactly what we would have chosen; our young padawan was ready to step out into life. 

There is a word for this: agency. We allowed him to have agency, that is a measure of responsibility under our care.

In our discipleship, we typically take as the dominant frame one of following three pictures:

1. Discipleship is a speed boat. All we do is get in and go. “Let go and let God!” There is nothing for us to do as we apprentice ourselves to Jesus.
2. Discipleship is a rowboat. All we do is well … everything! It all depends on me, and if I don’t pull myself up by the bootstraps then I’ll lose the grace of Jesus.
3. Discipleship is a sailboat. It’s hard work to hoist the sails, and God calls us to partner with Him as He continually sanctifies us in such a way where “we work with all the energy that He supplies” (Colossians 1:29).

My suggestion is that the Scriptures teach that discipleship is like a sailboat, and this is exactly what we see in our text. 

“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:15). 

This is not teaching us that we earn God’s favour or righteousness. This tells us that He sovereignly calls us to partner with Him in seeing Christ formed in us. 

As the late Dallas Willard is famed for saying: “Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning. Effort is an action; earning is an attitude.” 

And thank God (literally!) that He has provided everything we need for life and godliness.

So the question for us today is, how are we putting sin to death in our lives? What in your life do you know is out of sync with the kingdom of God? You are loved and in the safest hands!