Chutes and Ladders

I want to paint a picture for you of how I viewed my spiritual walk previous to having the revelation of God's grace a love extended to me.

It was like two steps forward, ten steps back. I would do something to please God and then forget to pray or get lazy about reading the Word then I would feel like I had to pay God back to get back to the puny little amount of his favor that I thought I "deserved".

I would compare myself to others. Oh, I have taught Sunday School for over 20 years and this person over here can't take it for even 6 months. Or I would avoid doings some "spiritual" things because I compared my spiritual walk to another sister or brother. I would brag to myself about one act of service and put myself down about another.

I might enjoy serving in one area of the Church but then think how can that be considered service if I like it so it must not count toward getting God's favor... and on and on with such a works type mentality.

I knew I was saved by God's grace and would make it to heaven based on what Jesus accomplished but I thought I had to pray just so and read just so many chapters in the Bible or accomplish just so many acts of service before God would even glance my direction. I was two steps forward and ten steps back constantly and this way of thinking--this mindset--is what prevented me from living the life that God has called me to.

Remember that board game called Chutes and Ladders? I always wondered why I hated that game. It's because that's how I viewed life as a believer. I would do some good and sow some good seed and I would get something good. I would move forward on the board. Just a few more squares to go and I will get to taste victory! I'm getting closer to being noticed by the Holy God of Israel!!!

But then I spin the spinner and it causes me to land on one of those blasted chutes and I would slide down- down -down sometime right back to where I started. But I keep trying and striving and eventually I will make it to the top.

When I played this game with my little daughters I would feel so badly when they landed on the square that pronounced them doomed to slide down the wretched chute. It was another defeat! It was another seed sown that grew up and choked out the Word in their life. It was Satan coming to kill, steal and destroy because of some sin in their life.

This type of mindset is so prevalent in the Body of Christ. We have a very limited view of God's grace. We seem to have "saved by grace" completely figured out. But when someone is already born-again we tell them they must be 100% clean and stay that way for God to ever see fit to use them for his purposes. So we live our spiritual lives like the wretched game Chutes and Ladders.

But you are talking about the Law of Sowing and Reaping, you may ask.

Yes, I am. But didn't Jesus say that as long as the earth remained there would be sowing and reaping? Yes, but he also said in John chapter four that God would sow so that we could reap.

John 4: 37 & 38For in this the saying holds true, One sows and another reaps.³⁸I sent you to reap a crop for which you have not toiled. Other men have labored and you have stepped in to reap the results of their work.

God sent Jesus like a seed that we could reap the benefits! That is just too good and just too sweet! That sets us free from the law of sowing and reaping and sets us free from that cycle of going up ladders and sliding down chutes. WOW!!!!

I love what Jesus reminds us in John 17:23 "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me."

Jesus is saying here that just as Jesus is loved by the Father, I am loved by the Father and because of what Jesus did for me--all of us-- that we are made perfect by what Jesus accomplished AND the world is going to see this as a fact. But we need to have a revelation --a deep conviction--that this is the truth in us.

Hey, this is such a rich topic, I'm going to expound upon my thoughts further in a few days. See you then!