Augustine On: Your Need for God's Grace (and My Need, Too)

"Therefore, just as it is by your doing that men who were once drunkards are not so for ever, it is also by your doing that those who were never drunkards are not drunkards now." (Confessions, X.31)

If I'm stuck in a sin, I need God's grace to get out. And if I'm free of that particular sin, I need God's grace to stay out.

It seems to me that this leaves no room for self-righteousness, because the "saint" is as dependent upon the grace of God as the "sinner." The picture I have in my mind is of two starving people. If one of them finds food and gorges himself, will he then consider himself superior to the other simply because his stomach is full? He's full because he ate food, not because he is a superior person. The other is hungry because he needs food, not because he is inferior. Fullness comes from food, and obedience comes from God's enabling.

So whether we fall or stand, we need God's grace. And "if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall" (1 Cor. 10.12).

Fear of Freedom

In telling the story of his conversion, Augustine wrote in his Confessions (VIII.5) about how he struggled, preconversion, with the implications of being a Christian and receiving God's grace. He understood that this would make a change of life - and self - not only possible, but also necessary. The prospect of being free of the sins that controlled him was attractive, but it was also frightening:

"Instead of fearing, as I ought, to be held back by all that encumbered me, I was frightened to be free of it."

Story of my life. I bet it's the story of yours, too.

I read a similar thought in a more contemporary book a few years ago, and the insight was helpful. As much as we hate our sins, shortcomings, addictions, and quirks, those are the things that we use to define ourselves to ourselves. "This is who I am, this is what I am like." If the alcoholic stopped being an alcoholic, who would he be? If the brainy guy stopped being so intellectual about everything, who would he be? If the emotionally inhibited man stopped repressing everything, who would he be? If the hypercritical woman stopped being so negative about everyone and everything, who would she be? If YOU stopped ______________, who would you be?

Even in our new lives as Christians, we become comfortable with our inadequacies, and even though we don't like them, holding on to them is preferable to giving them up and losing our identity.

Eventually, push comes to shove. It may happen at a crisis point, but it will more likely be a long series of little decisions. We either grow in Christlikeness by accepting the significance, security, and transformative power that Jesus offers us, or we continue to hold back the ugly but comfortable parts of our personality and identity.

In VIII.7, Augustine says to God, "You brought me face to face with myself..., forcing me upon my own sight so that I should see my wickedness and loathe it. I had known it all along, but I had always pretended that it was something different." Why call it wickedness if we can call it preferences, or weaknesses, or personality, or "Just the way I am"?

Ultimately, Augustine came around. Ultimately, he says to God (VIII.12), "You converted me to yourself." No other conversion, no other vision, will be strong enough to convince us to deny ourselves and follow Him.

"Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith." (Hebrews 12.2,3)

Augustine On: Why Apologetics Can Never Be Enough

"From my own experience I knew that there was nothing strange in the fact that a man who finds bread agreeable to the taste when he is well finds it hard to eat when he is sick, and that light is hateful to sore eyes, although we welcome it when our sight is hale and clear. In the same way the wicked find your justice disagreeable, just as they find vipers and worms unpleasant."

(Confessions, VII.16)

Arnold On: Augustine

Have any of you read Augustine's Confessions? If so, maybe you can tell me why Books I-X are so good and XI-XIV are so boring. For the first 70% of the book, I was asking myself why I waited so long to read this masterpiece - and now, in the last 30%, I'm asking, "Will it never end?" Am I just in a bad mood, or something?

Augustine On: The God of Balance and Paradox

"You, my God, are supreme, utmost in goodness, mightiest and all-powerful, most merciful and most just. You are the most hidden from us and yet the most present amongst us, the most beautiful and yet the most strong, ever enduring and yet we cannot comprehend you. You are unchangeable and yet you change all things. You are never new, never old, and yet all things have new life from you. You are the unseen power that brings decline upon the proud. You are ever active, yet always at rest. You gather all things to yourself, though you suffer no need. You support, you fill, and you protect all things. You seek to make them your own, though you lack for nothing. You love your creatures but with a gentle love. You treasure them, but without apprehension. You grieve for wrong, but suffer no pain. You can be angry and yet serene. Your works are varied, but your purpose is one and the same. You welcome all who come to you, though you never lost them. You are never in need yet are glad to gain, never covetous yet you exact a return for your gifts. We give abundantly to you so that we may deserve a reward; yet which of us has anything that does not come from you? You repay us what we deserve, and yet you owe nothing to any. You release us from our debts, but you lose nothing thereby. You are my God, my Life, my holy Delight, but is this enough to say of you? Can any man say enough when he speaks of you? … Even those who are most gifted with speech cannot find words to describe you."
(Confessions, I.4)