{"id":30297,"date":"2024-03-04T06:00:06","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T10:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gravitycommons.com\/?p=30297"},"modified":"2025-03-07T18:54:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T22:54:53","slug":"how-gods-grace-and-our-effort-work-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gravitycommons.com\/es\/how-gods-grace-and-our-effort-work-together\/","title":{"rendered":"How God’s Grace and Our Effort Work Together"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems endemic in our collective theological imagination that grace<\/em> and effort<\/em> are opposed to one another, on opposite ends of a spectrum.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In this way of thinking, to embrace grace is to move away from any kind of spiritual effort, and to apply effort in our spiritual lives is to move away from grace. This presents us with two options:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cIt\u2019s all about effort, so get busy.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0God helps those who help themselves. Sure, God may forgive your sins by grace, but if you want God\u2019s best blessings, you need to prove you\u2019re worthy of it through working hard at being good.<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cIt\u2019s all about grace, so relax.\u201d<\/strong> God saves us by grace. We can do nothing to earn it, and therefore any effort put into the life of faith puts you in danger of \u201cworks righteousness.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Obviously option #2 is closer to the gospel, but this framing of grace is deeply disempowering, because it doesn\u2019t give us anything to do. <\/em>It also makes much of the New Testament into nonsense, because it\u2019s filled with injunctions to \u201cmake every effort\u201d to add virtue to faith.<\/p>\n

    Ancient wisdom on grace and effort<\/h2>\n

    Fifth century theologian and writer St. Mark the Ascetic comments on this dynamic in his work \u201cOn Those who Think that They are Made Righteous by Works: Two Hundred and Twenty-Six Texts\u201d (quoted in The Philokalia<\/a><\/em>):<\/p>\n

    Some without fulfilling the commandments think that they possess true faith. Others fulfill the commandments and then expect the kingdom as a reward. Both are mistaken.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    The word reward<\/em> is the key to untangling how grace and effort work together. Notice the mistake of the second group is not<\/em> that they attempted to \u201cfulfill the commandments\u201d (i.e. put some effort into their faith). Their mistake is \u201cexpecting the kingdom as a reward\u201d for fulfilling the commandments.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019m reminded of a quote from Dallas Willard (may light perpetual shine on him), that helped me understand this dynamic. He said, \u201cGrace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

    How grace and effort work together<\/h2>\n

    So the reason we\u2019re confused about how grace and effort work together, then, is because we have conflated effort<\/em> and earning<\/em>. Our imagination for why<\/em> we would put effort into our faith has to do with what we would earn<\/em> as a reward.<\/p>\n

    But in fact grace is not<\/em> opposed to effort, but to earning.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    And for its own part, effort is not opposed to grace but to passivity (a lack of effort\/action).<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    Not to make this into a math problem, but if we combine these more truthful spectrums as an X\/Y axis, it yields a 2×2 matrix (which is one of my love languages).<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    If we believe our effort earns<\/em> us something from God, and we\u2019re working hard toward that reward, we\u2019re living in moralism.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    If we believe our effort earns us something from God, but we\u2019ve lost confidence we can obtain it, we\u2019re living in cynicism.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    If we believe in grace, but because of a fear of \u201cworks righteousness\u201d live in passivity, we\u2019re living in \u00af\\_<\/strong>(\u30c4<\/strong>)_\/\u00af<\/strong> (couldn\u2019t come up with word for this one, let me know if you have a good idea). We\u2019re just waiting around, hoping God\u2019s grace will transform us \u201cautomatically,\u201d but ultimately \u201cineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ\u201d (2 Pet 1:8).<\/p>\n

    Participating in grace<\/h2>\n

    The upper-right quadrant of faith-as-grace-and<\/em>-effort makes more sense of the way the New Testament talks about how our life in God works. It seems we need<\/em> to take action if we are going to remain inside the grace we\u2019ve been given.<\/p>\n

    For example, Paul writes to the Philippian church:<\/p>\n

    Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Phil 2:12-13)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Effort (\u201cwork out your salvation\u201d) and grace (\u201cfor it is God who works in you\u201d) work together to bring about transformation into Christlikeness.<\/p>\n

    Peter says it this way:<\/p>\n

    God\u2019s\u00a0divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life\u2026 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith\u2026\u201d (2 Pet 1:3, 5)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    God’ has given us everything we need, but in order to make it effective in our lives, it\u2019s necessary to \u201cmake every effort\u201d to add virtue to faith.<\/p>\n

    Here\u2019s St. Mark the Ascetic on the same dynamic:<\/p>\n

    Grace has been given mystically to those who have been baptized into Christ; and it becomes active within them to the extent that they actively observe the commandments. Grace never ceases to help us secretly; but to do good\u2014as far as lies in our power\u2014depends on us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Let\u2019s let Richard Rohr chime in, too:<\/p>\n

    Contrary to the grace versus \u2018works righteousness\u2019 dichotomy\u00a0that became popular after the Reformation, it takes\u00a0a lot of practice to remain fully open to undeserved and unmerited grace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    In other words, to quote Dallas Willard once again, \u201cYou cannot do it alone, but it will not be done for you.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Grace and effort work together in our spiritual formation. Without God\u2019s grace, there\u2019s no hope. But without effort, all the potential will lie dormant. Transformation is possible, but it doesn\u2019t happen without our cooperation. This is what it means to participate<\/em> in the life God shares with us.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It seems endemic in our collective theological imagination that grace and effort are opposed to one another, on opposite ends of a spectrum. In this way of thinking, to embrace grace is to move away from any kind of spiritual effort, and to apply effort in our spiritual lives is to move away from grace.…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith"],"yoast_head":"\nHow God's Grace and Our Effort Work Together - Gravity Commons<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gravitycommons.com\/es\/how-gods-grace-and-our-effort-work-together\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_MX\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How God's Grace and Our Effort Work Together - Gravity Commons\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It seems endemic in our collective theological imagination that grace and effort are opposed to one another, on opposite ends of a spectrum. 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