As I was thinking a bit about the mini-blog-o-kerfuffle precipitated by my post The Gospel Frees You to Chill the Heck Out, quoting Jared Wilson, I realized that part of the problem may have been lack of context. If someone doesn’t know Jared or his writings, it could have seemed like an encouragement toward slacker Christianity. But that would be very far off the mark.
The reason I read Jared’s blog is because he is relentlessly and cheerfully gospel-centric. He knows the gospel inside and out and helps me to know it better. So I encourage you to make Gospel-Driven Church regular reading. (See also his book, Your Jesus Is Too Safe.)
I also thought it would be helpful to highlight here a comment left at the post by Ray Ortlund, which wasn’t directed at any commenters but was rather at the principial level with regard to two kinds of spiritual intensity. He is building off of Luther’s quote that “It is the supreme art of the devil that he can make the law out of the gospel.”
Even when we are pursuing gospel aspirations, we can do so with the psychology of law. It shows. It makes us unhappy in ourselves and a royal pain to live with.
Let’s remember there are two kinds of spiritual intensity—that of the Spirit and that of the flesh.
The zeal or intensity of the flesh is driven by the law, the zeal of the Spirit gets lift-off from the gospel of grace.
When we find ourselves driven, angry, prickly, tense, trigger-happy, etc., that is the intensity of the flesh driven by a mentality of law, and that’s when it is time to humble ourselves, laugh at ourselves, reevaluate, and then get going again, but this time more chastened, more self-suspicious, more relaxed in the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ our wonderful Lord, whose yoke is easy.
It really is. Really.
