“Effort is not opposed to grace.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – January 9, 2025
My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. Proverbs 2:1-5, ESV
In most areas of life, we’re comfortable with the idea of working hard to achieve something. We put in extra hours at work to close a deal or gain a promotion. We cut out calories or add an extra workout in hopes of improving our fitness. And if we want our home and our car to be clean, we roll up our sleeves and dive in! Yet, when it comes to our spiritual lives, there can be a great aversion to anything resembling “work” or “effort.”
Rightly so, we have inherited a theological tradition that is wary of anything that looks like an effort to “earn” our salvation by our own merits. Yet, as I have often said in other devotionals, effort is not opposed to grace. Actively and intentionally seeking the Lord through acts of faithfulness and purposeful devotion does not in any way invalidate or replace the necessity of grace. Grace enables and empowers our efforts, yet we must still respond in faithful obedience, choosing to pursue the Lord and seek his presence with all our might.
Proverbs 2 paints a powerful and deeply moving picture of this passionate pursuit. We are told to make our ears attentive to wisdom, to raise our voice and call out for it, seeking it like silver and searching for it as for a hidden treasure. These are evocative images that speak to our deepest heart desires. When deeply in love, we call out for a lover, longing to turn their gaze in our direction. When captured by the glimmer of wealth, we will move mountains in our hunt for affluence and the comforts money can buy.
Our pursuit of the presence of God should be as passionate as a lover and as enraptured as the promise of great wealth, for in truth, the Wisdom of God is beyond compare and in every way more worthy of our love than any earthly passion. Choose today to live an active and passionate Christian life, refusing to settle for anything less than the daily encounter of the presence of the living God who loves us with a perfect love.
Prayer
Father, we choose today, by grace, to pursue you and call out for you, knowing that you are the true desire of our hearts and the only place in which we will truly find rest, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Application
How can you call out for Wisdom and pursue Christ with all you have in this season of life?
Related Reading
Ecclesiastes 7:12; James 1:5; Colossians 3:16
Worship Resource
Brooke Ligertwood: King of Kings
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