Rethinking Your Spiritual Report Card
Have you ever caught yourself grading your Christian life?
Perhaps you've mentally deducted points for missed church services, added a few for reading your Bible, or felt discouraged by what you perceive as spiritual failures. Many of us approach our faith as if God is constantly evaluating our performance, handing out A's, B's, or even F's based on our actions.
But what if this perspective is fundamentally flawed?
What if, instead of striving to improve our spiritual "GPA," we're called to embrace a radically different understanding of our relationship with God?
Let's explore this idea through the lens of Colossians 1:9-14, a passage that challenges our performance-based mindset and offers a liberating alternative.
The Trap of Spiritual Performance
Before we dive into the scripture, take a moment to reflect on your own spiritual self-assessment. If God were giving out grades for your Christian life, what would your grade be? An A-, B+, C, F?
Many of us fall into one of two categories:
The Strivers: Constantly trying to measure up, improve our "grade," and earn extra credit with God.
The Discouraged: Those who've given up, feeling like perpetual failures who can never meet God's standards.
Both mindsets share a common flaw: they place the focus on our performance rather than on God's grace.
The Truth from Colossians
Let's look at Colossians 1:9-10:
"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way."
At first glance, this might seem to reinforce the idea of striving to please God. However, a closer examination reveals a different emphasis.
God's Initiative, Not Ours
Notice that Paul isn't urging the Colossians to work harder at knowing God. Instead, he's praying for God to reveal Himself to them. As theologian Richard Mellick points out:
"It is unthinkable that someone could simply learn to know God. Most truths may be learned; divine truth must be revealed!"
(Richard Mellick)
This shifts the focus from our efforts to God's initiative. Our role is to trust Him to reveal Himself and His will to us.
What Really Pleases God
As we continue reading, we see Paul describe what pleases God.
10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience…
(Colossians 1:10-11)
1. Bearing Fruit (v. 10)
Notice that Paul says to bear fruit, not produce it. You don’t produce fruit. That’s Jesus’ job (John 15:5). Paul isn’t saying that your own effort to do good works (produce fruit) is what pleases God. What pleases Him is Jesus producing fruit through you.
2. Growing in Knowledge (v. 10)
When Paul talked about growing in the knowledge of God being what pleases Him, we again think that our effort to grow is what makes that happen. But remember, Paul has already prayed for God to be the One to reveal knowledge and wisdom to you (v. 9).
It’s God’s job to reveal Himself to you. Also, as one more point of emphasis, in the original Greek (growing) is in the passive voice. God is the one actively growing us in understanding Him.
3. Being Strengthened (V. 11)
Again, the focus is on God's power working in us, not our own strength. This divine empowerment results in endurance and patience.
The Dance, Not the March
Author Steve Brown captures this beautifully in his book "A Scandalous Freedom":
"The good news is that Christ frees us from the need to obnoxiously focus on our goodness, our commitment, and our correctness. Religion has made us obsessive almost beyond endurance. Jesus invited us to a dance...and we've turned it into a march of soldiers, always checking to see if we're doing it right and are in step and in line with the other soldiers."
The Christian life isn't about marching to God's orders, constantly checking our performance to get a better grade. It's about joining in a dance with Christ, letting Him lead and trusting Him to work through us.
You already have an A
Colossians 1:12-14 delivers the knockout punch to our performance-based mindset:
"...giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
(Colossians 1:12-14)
The astounding truth is this: God has already qualified us. We've already met the requirements for our spiritual inheritance. How? Through Christ's finished work on the cross.
In Tullian Tchividjian’s book, Jesus plus Nothing = Everything, he tells the story of Robin, Steve Brown’s daughter, and an experience she had in school one time.
Robin found herself in a challenging English literature course, convinced she would fail. Her father tried to get her moved to an easier class, but the teacher had a different idea. She told Robin, "What if I promise to give you an A no matter what you do in this class? If I gave you an A before you even started, would you be willing to take the class?"
With the pressure of performance removed, Robin not only stayed in the class but excelled, earning A's on her own.
Living from Acceptance, Not for Acceptance
This is how God deals with us. Because of Christ's finished work, we already have an A. The threat of failure, judgment, and condemnation has been removed. We are secure in His love and acceptance forever.
As Tullian Tchividjian puts it:
“Because of Christ’s finished work, Christians already have an A. The threat of failure, judgment, and condemnation has been removed. We are in, forever! Nothing we do will make our grade better, and nothing we do will make our great worse. In this life, by his death, and with his resurrection, Christ our substitute secured for us the everything, the A, that we come into this world longing for and yet are incapable of securing for ourselves. All the pardon, the approval, the purpose, the freedom, the rescue, the meaning, the righteousness, the cleansing, the significance, the worth, and the affection we crave and need are already ours in Christ. We don't need to add anything to it. The operative power that makes you a Christian is the same operative power that keeps you a Christian: the unconditional, unqualified, undeserved, unrestrained grace of God in the completed work of Christ.”
If you skipped reading that quote, go back and read through it slowly. Let it sink in. Believe this to be true of you. It changes everything.
Embracing the Freedom
When you grasp that you already have an A because of Christ, it frees you to fully engage in the dance of the Christian life. You no longer need to worry about failure or measuring up to others. Instead, you can dive in wholeheartedly, enjoying God's presence and trusting Him to express His life through you.
Remember, what pleases God isn't your striving performance but your trust in His completed work. So let go of the spiritual report card mentality and embrace the liberating dance of grace. In Christ and through His finished work on the cross, you are already qualified. Now it’s time to walk by faith and experience the life of Christ in you and through you.
It’s so easy to forget what the Christian faith is all about. We struggle so much, work so hard, and fail so often that we frequently sense something in the equation of life must be missing.Tullian Tchividjian argues that what we are missing is the gospel—a fuller, more powerful understanding of what the finished work of Jesus means for everyday life. During a year of great turmoil, Pastor Tchividjian discovered the power of the gospel in his own life. Sharing his story of how Jesus became more real to him, Tchividjian delves deeply into the fundamentals of the faith, explaining the implications of Christ’s sufficiency, a revelation that sets us free and keeps us anchored through life’s storms. Ultimately, Tchividjian reminds us that Jesus is the whole of the equation as he boldly proclaims that Jesus plus nothing really is everything.
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