From legalism to lawnmowers... only you, Jesus. Only you.

So often I find that I'm trying to do it myself. Trying to say and do the right things to "convince" someone to believe, trying to feel "enough" guilt for my sins, trying to write the perfectly clever blog entry, trying to figure out what to do with my life both on a large scale and on a small, minute by minute scale... everything. Forever I have been trying to take care of business, to get things done, to be the impressive, brilliant and wonderful stud that everybody thinks I am.

That above paragraph is basically the incarnation of legalism... Guilty. Red hands. Turning myself in now.

^"8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:8-10

Here's an example which I have thought up all on my own:

(^^^do you see the irony in that statement?^^^ I didn't even notice it until proofreading this... that's solid evidence that what is written here is truth)

Let's say a man makes a lawnmower. This lawnmower is his workmanship. Why did he make it? For a purpose - to cut grass. Now, if the lawnmower gets broken, what does the man do? Well, he's the one who created it- the only one who knows exactly how it functions- and he loves this lawnmower very much. So he's the one who's gonna fix it. And he takes whatever time it takes, endures whatever pains he has to in order to fix that lawnmower. He pours his heart and soul into making it even better than it was before.

So once this lawnmower works again... does anyone say to it "Wow you're really tearing it up out there. You rock, dude"? No. This lawnmower has done nothing to deserve praise, all it does is cut grass. All credit is given to the maker.


Now, back to reality: I am just a lawnmower. All I can do is let Him push me around. I'll cut whatever grass He puts in front of me... but that's all I can cut.

For we are God's workmanship.