Do it yourself religion?

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Though for some it’s almost like a second home, for me it’s a quiet moment of desperation. It begins with some angst, then long periods of procrastination, followed by that point of total desperation. Finally, when there are apparently no other choices – I surrender and go…I go to Menards. Going to Menards for me is a cross cultural experience. It’s like visiting another country – I don’t speak the language or understand most of the customs. Then, there’s this annoying music which keeps playing in the background about “save big money…” Okay, maybe I’m saving money but my sanity, well, that’s another matter.  

  Sooner or later nearly all of us end up joining the ranks of “Do-It-Yourself-America.” It’s the growing trend in America and this isn’t your Dad’s little local hardware store. Those have been dwarfed by the Menards, Home Depots and Lowe’s in a big box world. Why? Our culture thrives on self-sufficiency. How many times have we heard (or said), “If you want a job done right, do it yourself.” We believe wholeheartedly that the best person is an independent person. The more self-sufficient, the more personally capable, the more autonomous then the better we are.

  The high value that we place on independence and self-reliance is intrinsically woven into our national mindset. But it doesn’t stop there. It’s also contaminated our spiritual thinking. Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin, captured the essence of American spirituality in Poor Richard’s Almanac when he coined the popular motto (that some naively think is in the Bible), “God helps those who help themselves.”

  It’s the American way. Do it yourself. Fix it yourself. Probably, the majority of us grew up in homes where we were taught to not ask for help. Asking for help is looked at with askance. It’s for those who are uneducated or lazy or need a government handout. So when it comes to the spiritual side of life, we often merge that thinking even into matters of the soul and the eternal.  

  But is it true? Can we solve our spiritual problems by investing a little spiritual elbow grease on our souls? Can we build our own ladder to heaven “with a little help from the Big Guy”? Can we find peace and tranquility by “getting our act together” on our own power, by our own initiative? Or, could it be possible that in order to find true peace and fulfillment in life, we need more than just “a little help”? Could it possibly be that what we need is a full-blown rescue operation?

  The Bible is very clear on this – Christianity is not a do-it-yourself religion. No one can ever say that they worked their way into or that they made themselves a Christian. Christianity is not about working to earn God's approval. God approves us in spite of our mess and only because of what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf. The humbling truth of Scripture is that we contribute absolutely nothing to our salvation, zero, zilch, nada. Or, as I once heard it put, “The only thing we contribute to our salvation is our sin” and we’re very good at that one.

  The Apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, said, “while we were still helpless…Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). He echoed that reality in Ephesians 2:8, where Paul wrote, “by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Remember, Jesus reply to the Pharisees when they questioned Him on why He dined with sinners. “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick…for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12, 13). On another occasion, Jesus said to His disciples, “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). In other words, it’s all of God and it’s all of grace. The Bible is clear, when it comes to salvation, forgiveness and going to Heaven, we can’t do it. We’re absolute failures. Scripture makes no allowance for those who treat Christianity as a do-it-yourself religion.

  In Philippians 3, Paul shares that before he knew Christ, he believed the myth that he could save himself and that he could be saved by his own self-generated righteousness. He thought he could count on his ethnicity, his circumcision, his education, his morality, his zeal, and that the accumulation of all these things would earn him favor in the eyes of God. But then Paul met Jesus and when he met Jesus, he realized that all of his great credentials were like manure in the eyes of God. He finally understood that Jesus didn’t come to save good people, because there are no good people. But Jesus died for the ungodly—which is every single one of us.

  Let me illustrate how hopeless we are spiritually. Imagine yourself taking part in a sailboat race from Los Angeles to Honolulu. You’ve devoted some five years of your life training physically and developing your sailing skills just to participate in this competition. You’re now more than ready to cover the distance and have prepared for every possible contingency. The race will be a piece of cake. Nothing will keep you from your moment of glory in Hawaii. But then the unexpected happens. Six hundred miles from the finish line you encounter a violent storm. Your boat suffers severe damage and eventually sinks. Much to your surprise, you find yourself treading water in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

  Suddenly on the horizon, a rescue ship appears. It draws nearer and nearer. One of the crew on deck spots you as you bob up and down on the waves like a cork. They toss you a life preserver and tell you to hang on until they pull you to safety.

  So would you push the life preserver away and yell, “No thanks. My goal is to make it to Hawaii alone, and I’ll make it all by myself. I’ll swim the six hundred miles.” Insanity? The height of arrogance and pride? Perhaps. Yet, not very different from the way millions of people are trying to make it to heaven today.

  The first step toward heaven and salvation is realizing that we are in over our heads. We can’t “help ourselves.” The distance between us and heaven is far too great for us to make it on our own. Yet, thankfully, all is not lost. God has accomplished the greatest rescue mission of all time. He has thrown us the spiritual life preserver of forgiveness made available by the death and resurrection of His own Son, Jesus. 

  As we find ourselves adrift in the ocean of life, we face an all-important choice. Will we acknowledge our helplessness and take hold of God’s mercy…or will we just try to keep on swimming? 

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