These are 4 common pitfalls I've watched wonderful people struggle with again and again in their efforts to live a holy life--all pitfalls I've wrestled through personally. - Pastor Scott Marshall
COMMON PITFALLS
#1 “I’m not allowed to need help”, also known as "I fail if someone has to help me", or "It doesn't count if I don't do it myself."
In the West we live in a world of radical individualism. This has brought us to assume life is entirely up to us—all motivation/regulation/idea generation, hope/purpose/progress, improvement/spirituality/holiness—if they are to be, are fully up to me.
No one, the cultural narrative reinforces, is coming to help us.
This is a Western idea, and not a very human one. All human societies in human history (that is no hyperbole) have known we really do need each other—what’s more, we require each other. I cannot be me without you. Nor you without me.
This is a reflection of a basic Christian understanding, which is an acknowledgement of what is written in to our neurobiology.
Christians understand we are created in God’s triune, relational image—for relationships. This is because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit form the basis of reality—so friendship, connection, and love are at the core of what it means to be human.
I cannot generate myself, no matter how hard I try. I am not even supposed to.
In the New Testament, virtually all the “yous” are plural—when “you” are commanded to do something, it is “we” who are commanded to do something. This is the New Testament’s way of underlining, italicizing, and bolding the reality of the Trinity.
We together shape the life of faith.
A holy life always needs a holy community.
#2 "I have to understand it before I can do it"
This is the mistaken assumption that understanding is required before living can take place. As if being holy requires a basic comprehension quiz before you can start.
Two analogies.
School. You start school before you understand what it’s all about. In fact, you go to school in order to understand. Your ignorance is the actual impetus for going. Bring your ignorance along.
Kids. You have kids before you have any real sense of what having kids requires. You learn and are overjoyed and overwhelmed (depending on the day—sometimes all in the same day) as you go. You find out your not-knowing is a key part of the joy of discovering love you didn’t know you had.
In the same way, beginning to live a holy life (that is, practicing a life of love) doesn’t require understanding all it entails. You simply start loving and start listening, having pre-decided you will say yes to whatever God asks of you.
In the life of holiness, we are all beginners.
#3 "I have to be perfect"
The short response.
You are not perfect.
You will not be perfect.
To err is human.
You are in by God’s grace, not your performance.
Living a holy life is the effect in your life coming from the cause of the same grace that brings salvation to you.
God’s grace is the cause.
Holiness is the effect.
You aren’t entering a new, higher level of self-help.
You are going deeper into God’s love and drawing more deeply on God’s resources for your imperfection.
A more detailed response.
Matthew 5:48 translates the Greek word telos as “perfect.” So you have English translations with Jesus saying, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
On the face of it, this is troubling.
It has caused many well-meaning Christians to give up on being holy because they can’t be perfect. And it’s caused other Christians to say they are perfect when they are not.
But neither quitting nor faking help anyone.
In English, perfect means without error.
In Greek, telos means “end”, “goal”, or “mature”, “complete.”
It’s where we get the philosophical term “teleological” which references the purpose of things. “Perfect” is the translation because it attempts to convey the completion and maturity in mind.
A more literal reading would be, “Be telos, as your heavenly Father is telos.” Telos references something fulfilling the purpose for which it was created. Maybe these paraphrases of Matthew 5:48 will help (with apologies to the translation committees of the New Testament):
-Fulfill the purpose for which you were created, as your Father in heaven always fulfills his purpose.
-Be mature, as your Father in heaven is completely mature.
-Live in the direction of your end, as your heavenly Father is already there—living as you are intended to live.
-Live with God’s goal for your life in mind, as your Father in heaven is your goal.
-Be complete, as your Father in heaven is complete.
John Wesley talked at length about what he named “Christian perfection.” He recognized the challenge of the word but used it because Scripture (for him, the King James Translation) does.
His discussion bleeds into the present and is often mistakenly taken as though Wesley is arguing for the English definition—perfection that never has any error. Concepts like “sinless perfection” or “eradication” have been taught at times of our mistake, which is not the meaning John Wesley meant to convey or the New Testament means to convey with “telos.”
Wesley’s analogy about the decisive moments (like Entire Sanctification) required to move us toward holiness is a piece of logic.
His logic is like this. If I am intended to grow to at be at least 5 feet tall, there comes a moment that I am 5 feet tall. I am growing toward it, and all the growth toward it counts and all the growth after it counts. But that is a key moment.
This is essentially Wesley’s argument: If I am moving toward maturity, my intended purpose before God, there must be a moment at which I am mature and fully in my purpose. The growth before and after count, but that defining moment is also crucial.
Perhaps this will be helpful. I think of Entire Sanctification as a defining moment when I decide to never go back—much like the explorers who came to the Americas and burned the ships. That defining decision is the start of the journey of a lifetime of sanctification.
#4 "I believe fear and shame is valid fuel for living a holy life"
This is a bad version of the end justifying the means. And it is usually coupled with a faulty definition of holiness like this: The end is living a holy life—often defined solely in terms of morality (aka, “living right”), so if fear and shame will help get me or you there (the means), so be it.
Once you realize the essence of holiness—Christlikeness—is defined by Jesus as love of God and neighbor, it becomes hard to justify a non-love means to get to a love end.
In other words, if the end is to become full of love, then practicing love is the means to get to that end. But if I want fear and shame, the practicing fear and shame is the means to get to that end.
What you want is the way. Pick which you'd like.
John Ortberg’s example is apt: If the goal is entering a pie-eating competition, that means I will eat a lot of pie in order to win.
Since the goal is to win at love, that means I will do a lot of loving in order to win. What you want is the way.
The paradox is that living a life of love is the way to turn a life in the moral direction of “living right.”
John the beloved underscores it:
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love.”
1 John 4:18