Grace is at the core of the gospel. It’s what makes “the good news” so good. Grace is when God gives us what we could never earn on our own, because of Jesus. And yet… Many people struggle with it. They struggle to understand it let alone receive it and walk in it. They struggle to understand how their performance as a Christian does not change God’s love and acceptance of them. As a result, they fall into the performance trap, believing their self-righteousness impacts God’s view of them.

The question is, WHY? Why do we struggle to understand grace if it is at the core of our faith? Why is it so hard to live in grace when grace has been so freely given to us?

A few years ago I began seeing how I struggled with God’s grace. I read about it, believed it (or so I thought), and even preached it. Yet all the while, there was a big problem in my understanding of God’s grace. I had fallen into the performance trap. I was basing my relationship with God upon my own performance each day, not upon His grace towards me in Christ. Are you making the same mistake?

The Gospel of Grace Is More Than A Performance Checklist

I had a mental list in the back of my mind. I never spoke of it, but I lived by it. It was something like this.

• Have I spent time in devotion and prayer?
• Have I been victorious over sin?
• Have I been diligent in my ministry work?
• Am I serving and giving faithfully?

Maybe you have a similar list? These things seemed so essential to my relationship with God. On the days I could answer “yes” to these questions, God seemed so close. I felt as though I could do anything the Lord wanted or asked. My confidence surged and life seemed to flow. I was proud of myself, so He was pleased with me too… right?

The problem was, there were also bad days. Days I answered “no” to one or all of these questions. On these days, God didn’t seem so close. He didn’t seem so pleased with me. I would find myself vowing to do more, to do better, “next time”.

It was a terrible cycle… up and down, round and round…

The danger of the checklist mentality is that it is so easy to fall into and be deceived by. Self-righteousness can be intoxicating when you meet your own imposed standards. But it can be grueling when you fail them. Yet so many of us fall into the performance trap of trusting our own righteousness, without realizing it.

Where Does Your Confidence Come From?

While I preached grace to others, in reality, I didn’t understand what it was. I was trusting in “my performance” as the basis for my right standing with God. I was being self-righteous.

Without even realizing it, I had fallen into the same trap as the Galatians… the performance trap. I had “begun in the Spirit” but was now trying to “be perfected by the flesh”¹

While I knew in my head it wasn’t so, deep down, I believed God’s acceptance of me was based on what I did for Him.

On some level, most Christians have struggled with the performance trap. They struggle with trusting their own self-righteousness. To those who do, the gospel sounds something like this for the lost:

“Come to Jesus and He will wipe away your sins. He loves and accepts you the way you are.”

But once someone is saved, the gospel begins to sound more like this:

“Now that your saved, you must live in a way that is acceptable to God. If you do, He will love and accept you and you’ll be a good Christian. If You don’t He won’t.”

This misunderstanding of the gospel and how God’s grace makes us holy is plaguing many people’s relationships with God. Rather than being Holy, we settle for the poor substitute of self-righteousness.

How Misunderstanding Grace Makes You An Easy Target

Satan knows this and encourages it. Because we are so excited to be saved He easily tempts us into the trap of performing for God’s love and acceptance. Doing so sets us up as easy prey when we fail. He (Satan) heaps condemnation upon us, causing us to draw away from God. This makes us even more susceptible to Satan’s attacks. He has discouraged and derailed many people with this tactic.

If there’s any chance this could be you, then know that it doesn’t have to be this way. What you may need is a fresh encounter with God’s grace!

God’s love for you is not based upon your performance… it is based upon His grace towards you in Jesus! It is based upon the finished work of Jesus upon the cross. It is Jesus who makes you Holy in God’s sight and it is God’s Holy Spirit who empowers you to live Holy lives today. This is Grace!

You don’t earn God’s acceptance, you simply believe it by faith and live in that reality. When you do, you will find God’s love and grace towards you in Christ is one of the most sanctifying powers in the world.

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Footnotes:

1. “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
   ‭‭Galatians‬ ‭3:1-3‬ ‭ESV‬‬