As I write this I am aware that one can easily fall into the same trap. The entire Christian structure is based on one thing: Jesus has already saved us and will make us who he wants us to be.
It is not going to be us, it is going to be him. If we stay with Christ, and only with Christ, seek his kingdom and his righteousness… the other things will be added.
But we fall away. Into licentiousness and corruption.
1I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3and all ate the same spiritual food, 4and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. 5Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.
6Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. 7Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.” 8We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. 10And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. 12So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. 13No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
Or we fall into the habit of worshiping our traditions and following rules rather than Christ.
1Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; 7in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ 8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
9Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ 11But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God) – 12then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”
14Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”
17When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18He said to them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.
Among the hyper-calvinists, this doctrine — that it is the will of God that we are saved has led to a rigid tradition of predestination and an associated fatalism. The truth and freedom within Christ is lost in a set of theological tests that prove that one is the elect. And there have been many, many Godly men and women, who knowing it is but Christ who saves us,… preach on the morality of the day,and give help or advice in withstanding the common sins — which Christ lists above. Then people take that list and make it a tradition. We shall not dance because St Sally said so: we shall have worship this way because St Jerome said so…
Or (as a greater error) we shall not do this, or that, because these pagans (Feminists, Socialists, Fascists and Wiccans) have told our committees that what we are doing offends the great Gods of this age: tolerance, anti-racism and Gaea.
The balance is in Paul: if we think we are standing then we need to examine ourselves, because we can fall. And Fall, And Fall. (Here our Roman Friends have confession, and our angilcan friends that most powerful prayer of repentance).
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against thee
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved thee with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we earnestly repent.
For the sake of thy Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in thy will,
and walk in thy ways,
to the glory of thy Name. Amen.
We need to turn again, each day, to Christ, and do our duty. Regardless of how we fell yesterday. For today is but the one thing we can control.
I love the Anglican confession. The RCC has the Confiteor, or the Penitential Act, which we proclaim together as part of Mass, much the same language. I like the Anglican one better, it’s more poetic, and I slip back into it if I’m not paying attention.
we fall into the habit of worshiping our traditions and following rules rather than Christ
All too true.