Do you often struggle with not feeling good enough?  Do you fear the whispers inside your head that you are not doing enough for God?  Do you feel inadequate, ineffective, discouraged, insufficient to the tasks of being a good Christian?  Then you like me may have been fooled by God’s enemies.

You see the Christian race that Paul discussed is not run against each other, each of us jockeying for positional recognition of deeds, piety and results.  The Christian finish line is not to exchange God’s sacrificial gift to save humanity for a list of rules, achievements and performance objectives.  The hope that I have is that through studying God’s Word and remaining in prayer and great fellowship with God that I will begin to resemble Him, that I will begin to show His Glory to a world that desperately needs Him.  Does any  of that have anything to do with “my” performance?  That is satan’s great lie,that my efficacy of a Christian depends upon my performance as a man.  If you take a look at most if not all religions you will see this common “performance” theme.

Let us never forget that we are in a battle and our enemies are extremely crafty, utilizing deception, obfuscation and lies to lead us away from God’s Purpose.  I have been asking God this week to remove the constant enemy assaults, begging, pleading with Him to save me from the barrage of fiery darts with which I must continually contend.  God’s answer was that He already has.  This left me breathless, when I realized that I have been allowing all these years of enemy attacks.  God’s Word continually reminds us that the enemy is a defeated foe, right?  God’s Word tells us that the enemy and sin have no authority over our lives as believers that we are no longer slaves to sin and death.  Why then can the enemy have any efficacy in my life since these things are true?  That horrible and delightful answer is that he cannot.

So I began to look for the window that I have left open through which the enemy may launch these deceptive assaults.  I found that it is my desire to be good enough for God.  My desire to “perform” in a human way, to show my deeds to others to find validation in action that allows the enemy to challenge me at all.  You see if the Christian life is not about my performance but God’s ability to demonstrate His grace through me, then the entire illusion breaks down.  If my hope is that God’s Glory will shine through me in reflection then my performance becomes irrelevant.  Subsequently, if my performance has nothing to do with my Christian efficacy or success then criticizing my performance or pointing out my inadequacies is irrelevant to God’s successes.  Two things happened this week; I stopped thinking that Christianity is a performance discipline and the illusion of the need for my appearance of adequacy was dispelled.  The enemy has no authority in my life except that which the Lord gives him to usher me one direction, back to God’s Sovereign protection, authority and grace.  I have stopped trying to win this race but rather just finishing it accepting God’s Sovereign actions through me as conduit of His Power and Love.

I hope to study today, pray today and spend time with God today so that I may begin in some small way to resemble Him and so doing show something to this world that it desperately needs.  Trying to be good enough for God or man is declaring your allegiance to the enemy’s continued deception of authority in your life.  Close that window and open the door to God’s shaping hand of conforming Grace.  Stay with God and forget the fraudulent whispers of any other voice that would express sovereignty.  God alone is Sovereign and Jesus Christ the King of Kings.