Daily Devotional

Building on the rock means finally admitting three things. First, I am a sinner, not merely someone who makes mistakes, but someone whose very nature apart from grace is sin. Second, I cannot fix myself; a sinner cannot reform himself enough to please God, for we can change how we sin but we cannot stop sinning. Third, I cast myself completely on Jesus as Savior and Lord, not Savior only, but Lord too. That is what it means to step off the sidewalk of a safe, tame, self-managed religion and stand small before the living God.

But here is what we so easily forget. Walking off the sidewalk is not a one-time event. It is a daily direction. Every coin has two sides, and so does faith: repent and believe. We do not repent and believe only at conversion. We keep on repenting and we keep on believing, and that becomes our lifestyle. Every morning you get up and turn away from the tame little self-controlled life all over again, and you cast yourself on Jesus all over again.

Paul is describing exactly this in Second Corinthians. To be in Christ is not to improve the old sidewalk life. It is to become a brand new creation, with a brand new love and a brand new purpose, living for the One who died for you instead of living for yourself. So here is the sweetest homework there is: get up tomorrow and keep walking off that sidewalk. When you feel yourself drifting back toward the safe, managed, going-through-the-motions religion, catch it, repent again, and believe again.