I don't have any boots!

Wow. My whirlwind trip to Kenya and back is over. In many ways, it felt like a homecoming. I was back in Kijabe, where I served as a missionary surgeon for four years. Seeing old friends and making a few new ones was an undeserved joy.

Undeserved joy. The essence of grace. Which, of course, brings me back to the topic of my message series: GRACE!

It was so much fun to nudge fellow believers to recognize the grace of God. And so needed. Because western Christians seem hardwired to default to the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality.

Why is it so hard to believe that God won't like me just a little more if I perform well on a test? Maybe it's because we like ourselves a little more.

But in God's economy, the cross is all that matters. I've become his righteousness. Christ became sin for me.

I love what Pastor Mark Driscoll (www.marshillchurch.org) says about the things we do to try to remedy our own sin problem. Anything we do to try and make ourselves acceptable to God is living out of a false gospel. False gospels, Driscoll says, always elevate self. The true gospel elevates the cross. False gospels says, "pick yourself up by your bootstraps." The true gospel says, "You don't have any boots!"

I want to deserve God's love. But on my own, I don't. Without boots, I'm completely incapable of lifting myself up to God.

I've started a list to compare the true gospel with our number one default gospel, working hard to make yourself presentable to God. The heading of one column is "Walking in the Spirit," the other, "Walking in the flesh."

I'll get us started and I'll ask you to fill in your own. For example, under "Walking in the flesh," I enter, "pick yourself up by your bootstraps." Under "Walking in the Spirit," I write: "No boots!" Under WITF, I write, "works". Under WITS, "faith." Under WITF, "doing." WITS: "Being." Under WITF: Fruit-oriented. WITS: root-oriented. WITF: behavior modification. WITS: heart-transformation.

You get the idea. Let me see your comparisons. Next time, I'll give you my whole list.

Grace, Harry