Measuring up
Tonight during our Dynamics of Biblical Change class, Dr. Powlison shared a quotation with us from one of his teachers. It went something like this:
The amount of glory you bring to God is not measured by the amount you accomplish, but rather by the difference between what you are in yourself and what you become by grace.
What hope there is in that statement for us all! It means that you don’t have to be someone great (as we measure it in human standards) to have significance in God’s Kingdom. Powlison shared with us the story of John, someone he counseled years ago who was a certified paranoid schizophrenic. I’ll skip all the details of how it came about, but eventually the man came to a simple faith in Christ. While he continued to have struggles and at times bad episodes, there was, over time, increasing evidence of a work of God in his life. As Dr. Powlison put it, he wasn’t dealt a full deck in life, in fact he only got about four cards, and they were pretty tattered…yet the little victories he had and the small ways in which he learned to use his gift of helps in his church congregation became powerful trumpet blasts proclaiming God really can change us…the Gospel truly is for anyone anywhere in any circumstances. John will never, this side of heaven, be completely right. He’ll never stop struggling (and who of us does?). But he just may be more of a glory to God than I’ll ever be.
The book of Ephesians can be divided pretty neatly into two parts, the first dealing with cosmic issues of who we are in Christ and who Christ is for us, the latter with how we live that out in the church. But in that second half, it’s interesting to note that Paul spends a good deal of time laying out how we are all the same at the foot of the cross before he gets into the different offices and levels of submission in the church. Fundamentally, we are all the same. And so we all have the same potential for bringing glory to Christ. What hope that is for us all!
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October 5th, 2004 at 1:50 am
Thank you, Mark.
October 5th, 2004 at 8:44 am
Amen to the quote.
October 5th, 2004 at 9:13 am
_steve, you have a PM from me.
October 5th, 2004 at 3:23 pm
I need to comment more on your blog, Mark! It is such an encouragement to me.
It’s so wonderful to hear of God’s grace…especially for someone like me. I always joke that I’m not a “great theologian”, but He has still chosen to save me. Grace is so amazing.
October 5th, 2004 at 3:35 pm
Chrissy, your comments would be much treasured here!
And yes, God’s grace is truly the most amazing thing we know of.
October 5th, 2004 at 4:29 pm
I love your blog Mark. In a “blogosphere” bursting with tripe, vapid and misguided thoughts on theology and religion, it’s great to read someone pursuing truth by more means than what “feels good” or makes them comfortable.
Grace is amazing and torturous - as it comes with the realization that you are incapable of earning it or choosing it (dead in transgressions) - a thought which is disdainful to many.
Great stuff.
October 5th, 2004 at 5:56 pm
Welcome, Paul. I am honored that you took the time to read and comment. May I assume that you found me through Michaela’s “Beautiful Mess”? I think I’ve seen you comment there.
I also enjoyed looking at your web site. Noticed you, like me, are a fan of the writing of Frederick Buechner. Which reminds me, I need to add him to my “Influences” links to the left! And your reveiw of Cold Play’s “A Rush of Blood to the Head” captured that album just the way I felt it.
Speaking of Buechner (whom I first read after asking Michael Card what he reads outside fo the Bible), his writings taught me that principle of grace being best expressed in this world in God’s choice of broken vessels.
October 5th, 2004 at 6:54 pm
Ah Buechner. The once Presbyterian minister. Buechner amazes me. I’m starting to read Book of Bebe. Truly writing I wish to aspire to (writing well, while maintaining a view of faith, without seperating the writing realm from the world it resides in). Have you seen the documentary that was recently done on him? I haven’t, save the few clips on the web site. He and Wendell Berry are my favorite current (”Christian”) fiction authors.
I bet you’d like this little journal I get : Nicotene Theological Journal … incredible little quarterly; and or Touchstone Magazine (far superior to CT or any other “evangelical” rag out there in terms of grappling culture with theology and sound reasoning).
Ramble ramble …
October 5th, 2004 at 8:05 pm
Paul, thanks for the tip on the documentary. I hadn’t heard about it, but if I get all my seminary homework done tonight I’ll treat myself to watching the preview.
And sorry about your comment getting bounced a few times; to prevent comment spamming, I have my blog set to hold comments with links in them for my approval.
October 5th, 2004 at 10:16 pm
Oh, ok. Sorry then about innudating you with the same comment. Must seem like I have tourettes.
October 23rd, 2004 at 11:39 pm
Credit where credit is due.
Vagus » 2004 » October » 05 cites Sacred Journey: Measuring up quoting David Powlison: Tonight during our Dynamics of Biblical Change class, Dr. Powlison shared a quotation with us from one of his teachers. It went something like this:…