God is perfectly loving, perfectly kind, perfectly just, perfectly powerful, perfectly holy, perfectly wise, perfectly present. His character is flawless. His purposes are unstoppable. On the other hand, you are I are none of that. We fall short in every way. We’re all sinful.
Hundreds of years before God-in-the-flesh arrived on earth, Isaiah painted a picture of hope when he said, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isa. 9:2a). The prophet predicted the arrival of Jesus the Messiah centuries before His birth. Jesus is a great light. Have you seen that great light? Have you embraced His forgiveness. Are you experiencing a brand-new life? Is Jesus personal and real to you or along with Santa Claus is He just the figurine of a cultural holiday?
GraceWorks: GraceWorks International is a fairly young ministry but clearly growing. What are you hoping to accomplish?
Joe Duke: Yes, we’re just under two years old now! That’s hard to believe. When I stepped away from my Senior Pastor role at LifePoint Church, I knew I wasn’t done with ministry and that a fire still burned in my bones to see people grow and change. I started GraceWorks primarily to provide clarity in all things grace and see people grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.
Children seem instinctively drawn to the baby Jesus. Most nativity sets feature a removeable Jesus which means it’s easy to lose Jesus. Jesus is usually the first thing children reach for when eyeing those figures depicting the first Christmas. So, we’ve searched our house more than once for the missing Jesus. One year, we found Jesus in the back of a toy dump truck but no worse for the wear.
But the typical nativity scene is missing one prominent figure who was present that first Christmas—a red dragon. The dragon is part of the unvarnished Christmas story that rarely gets told. It’s a story that reaches far into the past and stretches infinitely into the future.
People using the phrase, a real Christian, might as well be saying, I double-dog dare you. Rather than relying on the content of a cogent argument, they default to simplistic fighting words—a real Christian. Using the phrase, a real Christian, is a kind of mic drop designed to leave anyone holding an opposing view in stunned silence. End of discussion.
But the way most people use the words, a real Christian, is fundamentally flawed. In current vernacular, that phrase is almost always tied to behavior. Real Christians do or don’t do certain things. This reliance on behavior violates the very definition of Christian salvation. A Christian is not one who behaves himself or herself into salvation or proof of conversion. We’re saved “not by works of righteousness which we have done,” but by God’s mercy (Tit. 3:5).
Many of us, probably more than once, have begged God for a sign. Maybe we’ve even tried to bargain with God. We ready ourselves with a string of promises meant to rope God into action. We assume it’s a spiritual quid pro quo—God does His part, we do ours. So, we promise God a renewed commitment or assign Him the rights to our firstborn, if only He would show up in some indisputable way. If He rescues us from financial disaster, we’ll be more generous. If He helps us pass that test, we’ll tell everyone how good He is. If He ensures that we land the perfect job soon, we’ll promise to one day become a missionary to Borneo.
But God is always working even when it seems like He’s not. And He’s always speaking. He doesn’t have to be cajoled or pressured into communicating. He is there and He is not silent. And when asking if God speaks, we may also stumble onto an equally important question: are we listening?
Maybe God’s newness is always all around us waiting to be enjoyed. Not only does God create something new in us when we place our faith in Jesus, but He also opens up a whole new world before us. We’ve been ushered into a new existence! And God is with us to help us live in this new creation.