"Bookends of the Christian Life" - Part 1

Right now I am reading Bookends of the Christian Life by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington. Actually I am almost finished with it. It is a rather short book (154 pages), but in typical Bridges fashion, it is full of rich, Biblical truth. I plan on taking three posts to cover everything I have read. Today I want to give an introduction to the book and cover the first bookend. Next week we will tackle the second bookend. The final installment will be my concluding thoughts and summary of how this book helped me. 

Before I get too deep into this topic I want to say that I HIGHLY recommend this book. It is probably one of the five most influential books I have read. That is saying a lot! I will save my personal experience for another time, but this book is awesome!

Why is it so awesome, you ask? First of all, the image Bridges and Bevington use to describe the Christian life, a bookshelf where all the books on it represent the different parts of our lives, is so simple and appropriate. These “books” can be spiritual or practical every day stuff, but our life is full of them. And every bookshelf needs two sturdy bookends to keep the books propped up, preventing them from falling into disarray. 

Everyone of us feel at one time or another that we are juggling life, trying to keep all the balls in the air. That is a typical analogy, but this image of a bookshelf to me makes much more sense. Bookends are meant to leaned upon. They are designed to be heavy, sturdy, immovable. Otherwise, they would be useless. The two bookends of our Christian life are the righteousness of Christ on the one side and the power of the Holy Spirit on the other. God has placed these two sturdy gifts around our lives to prop us up and keep us aligned with Him. 

The first bookend, the righteousness of Christ is one that we sometimes take for granted in the Christian life. 

Answer me this: What did Jesus accomplish for us on the cross? Yes, He saved us from our sins, purchased our ransom, and took away the wrath of God. He was truly the perfect, Paschal Lamb. Very good. But that is only part of the answer. 

Having our sins forgiven and therefore having a blank slate before God is NOT sufficient to enter heaven to be with God. We forget that God requires us not merely to be clean; we must be perfect (Matthew 5:48). “Perfect” means perfectly keeping all of God’s commands. So, even if we are forgiven how are we going to fulfill every command of the Law?

This is why what Jesus accomplished in his life on earth was so important. He completely fulfilled all the righteous requirements of God’s law (Matthew 5:17).  And the second half of what was accomplished on the cross is that we were declared righteous by God based on the righteousness of Christ that was imputed (given) to us (2 Corinthians 5:21). When we stand before God to be judged, He will look at us and see the righteousness of Christ and allow us into eternal fellowship with Him… wow. 

Think about that for a moment. 

This is an amazing bookend for our walk with Him. This means that we depend on, lean on, and rest on the righteousness of Christ when it comes to obeying God. We don’t depend on our righteousness, or good works. We have none… even as Christians. Only Christ was righteous. Only Christ obeyed and fulfilled the righteous commands of God. 

All of this so far is mostly theological, and it is important, but here is where the rubber really hits the road: This means that the way we live our lives as Christians is NOT to generate good works or righteousness in order to please God… we are meant to lean on the righteousness of Christ and display that righteousness which is inside us to the world in order to glorify Christ. 

Our maturity as believers is not a matter of doing more for God. Our maturity is a matter of letting Christ and his righteousness shine out of our lives. This is the first bookend. 

I’ll flesh this out a little more next week. But think on this… As a Christian, you are completely forgiven and accepted by God because of Christ’s righteousness. God will not love you more or less based on your performance.  You are forgiven. You are accepted. There is no need for perpetual guilt. Lean on this bookend. Rest in the grace of Christ. You are loved. Feel that.