The goodness, truth, and love of the Christian life
Part 3
However, the desire for righteousness remains a true aim, but we rely on grace to attain it. Counter-intuitively, by not focussing on being righteous, but instead trusting in the grace of God shown to us in Jesus, the quality of relationship with God that that enables breaks down the barriers between ourselves and God and so releases his own love into our lives. In living out this love, we are able to be channels of God’s own goodness, truth and love. This liberating and supremely fulfilling quality of life becomes ours – ours to enjoy and ours to share. Are we now perfect? Of course, we are not, but we have learnt to wear perfection like an overcoat, and it is starting to fit. Perhaps this is what it means to “put on Christ”. The frailty of our humanity is overlaid by his goodness. Not in a way that obscures our personhood, but we and Christ are corporately joined into one, so that Christ’s perfect love is seen in us even while it is expressed through our individual personality. The grace of Christ seeps into our souls, or, to shift imagery, it bubbles up from within us. Whichever the direction is, the result is a kind of hybrid, for we want to remain truly ourselves (I see no point in faith obliterating God’s creativity in making us who we are), while also entering into a new kind of life that expresses the fullness of God’s grace that has been shown to us in Christ. We are copying him, while simultaneously being ourselves.
Spiritual Devotion 