Plateau-ing

Recently I was chilling in one of my favorite coffee shops working on a few thing when I over heard this statement, “I like my Christianity just the way it is.” Needless to say I dropped eves for the rest of their conversation – I know wrong, somehow.

But it got me to thinking, how many Christians live in this same mindset, “I like my belief just the way it is.” It seems ridiculous to me. To think where your faith is now is where you'll want it to be for the rest of your life. Quite frankly, I don’t think that is the point of faith.

Oughtn’t our faith to be growing and changing? Morphing us from who we were to who we are to who we’ll be. And as our faith grows oughtn’t our capacity to love increase as well? To see those we once held in contempt as either dear brothers or people in need of friends.

To think oneself of having arrived in the perfect position of faith is to not have faith in the least. For if, “you’ve arrived,” then you’ve done everything that is possible leaving nothing more to be done and that’s not faith, it’s legalism.

It’s a dangerous thought – the plateau – killing what little faith might have been present (The Parable of the Sower Matthew 13:1-9). But the thing with the Gospel is it leaves little room for, “arriving,” or, “plateauing,” in fact it leaves little room at all for anything you’ve done (Isa 64:6). The beauty of grace is it makes life unfair and the wonder of Jesus is he makes you good enough.

So in a sense the plateau is real, for Jesus is the plateau and on him we stand. But in the sense of growing faith the plateau is dangerous and ought not be trifled with, for we simply will never arrive at needing Christianity just the way we like it.