Di Bassinga Diaries: Responsibility and Control

"A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises...All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear with hearing..." (Ecclesiastes 1:4-8)

Time passes, it just does. This is something each of us knows, but it doesn't create the same reaction in each of us (nor should it). We're constantly picking up more responsibility, at least we should be, whether we want to or not. If nothing else, there are relationships and a livelihood to keep up. You could decide to drop everything, but this would remove the meaning and purpose you're looking for in life. This responsibility is good. But it's easy to lose sight of what responsibility actually is. Because of this, I find there's often tension between taking on greater responsibilities and trying to grab for more control.

This tension is inevitable. Until we're fully sanctified and pure in heaven, we wrestle with what is essentially a new reality under Christ. The Lord Himself tackles this tension when asked about the issue of paying taxes ("Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's”; Mark 12:17). Rather than "catching" Christ, I imagine the religious teachers questioning Him felt stumped by His response. It's easy to feel this way myself, part of why I'm writing this out. But, the issue of responsibility that I'm thinking of goes a bit deeper than the material matters of bills and taxes. I wonder how exactly we are to relate to responsibility itself. Is there a “correct” side in this tension?

By Design

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." (Genesis 2:15)

I mentioned before that this matter of responsibility came up long before you or I were born. In fact, it's been a part of the human experience since the dawn of man—before we were ever separated from God, before Adam and Eve sinned. After creating the heavens and the earth, which God called very good, he creates us. Just after this, God blesses a day of rest, but not before giving us our task: "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Genesis 1:28).

This is the first matter that eases my tension: it's in our design to be responsible. God saw fit that we not sit around and be parasites. Through His Spirit, He's given each of us gifts. And on top of that, He's given us a command. Essentially the same in Genesis and in the Gospels: be fruitful, multiply. What this means for us now is that, once we've come to know God through Christ, we have a responsibility to spread the Gospel which saved us—and to do so with the whole, authentic Gospel of Christ (Galatians 1:8). This is beautiful, that God would partner with us even after all our screw-ups, but it brings up a new layer to this issue. What responsibility, specifically, do we have to this world and this Gospel?

Faith Without Works is Dead, But Works Don't Give Us Life

"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." (James 2:14-17)

"For by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Here, and in so many places throughout the New Testament, we see two ideas—salvation not-of-works and salvation-sourced works—come seemingly at odds. It's not our works that secure our salvation, but they are proof that we are indeed saved. That doesn't always make sense. This is where I often introduce the idea of our works being responses of love rather than of rule, as a way to conceptualize it. It's easy enough to say that the more time you spend with someone, especially someone as great as God Himself, the likelier you are to want to do right by Him. But grace is always just as important to preach. We can't get so caught up in trying to prove our faith that we forget there's a relationship to maintain and that God gives us room to grow in doing so.

What's also true, though, what I've been thinking about recently, is that even in this grace and in our moments of God-ordained rest we have a responsibility to spread the Gospel and represent the Lord as well as we can. We're responsible for giving our best efforts as often as we can. We're responsible for our devotional life. We're responsible for the relationships we build with other believers and with non-believers. We're not called to live idle lives, tucked into our bubble of local (or online) believers. As easy as it would be to ride our salvation into the sunset, doing so brings into question whether or not we understand the gravity of the Gospel. None of this work saves us, but we need to think deeply about what our works and the fruit of these works say about the genuineness of our relationships with God. So what is, ultimately, the proper way to relate to our responsibilities under Christ? And where on earth does control come in?

Responsibility and Control

"The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established." (Proverbs 16:1-3)

The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Responsibility humbles itself before God where control seeks to take reality into its own hands; I believe the balance is struck in constant prayer. This is where I've found myself after just a few years of committed relationship to Lord and to walking by His teachings. I can't say that I have the clearest understanding of everything that comes my way, but I believe it's impossible (or at least extremely unlikely) that one wouldn't be submitted to Lord's will if they were habitually abiding by Him (or spending time with Him in reading, prayer, and other disciplines).

We absolutely have responsibilities, as citizens of Heaven living on earth. Our highest allegiance (at risk of sounding lofty), though, is to the Lord, His will, and His commands. We are also given command and wills of our own over these responsibilities. I've found that the best way to ensure that we are stewarding these responsibilities properly is by asking God Himself, constantly. This means going to Him directly in prayer, yes, but I've found that it also helps to go to people who themselves are actively surrendering to the Lord and His Word.

This is necessary, because we're here. As great as it will be to be with God for eternity, we have responsibilities to take on and look after now. Everything we do, if we're as bold about our faith as we ought to be, represents Christ. We aren't alone in fulfilling this Great Commission, but that we do have a responsibility to mind our business. It's the warning of the log and the speck (Matthew 7:3-5). For the sake of ourselves, those around us, and those we're called to care for and minister to, it's imperative that each of us take responsibility for ourselves with respect to the Gospel.

We're not the ones in control of the consequences, but we have control over our actions. If we wish to honor the Lord in word and in deed, to fulfill the law through love, and to populate Heaven for the glory of God, then we have to recognize that, though we don't the final say (that belongs to God), we do have a mission in the meantime. What it looks like to walk that out is what I hope to layout in my writing, but it's something that should be seen in the lives of Christians around us and, maybe more importantly, in each of us individually. Take on responsibility and release control; in doing so, we glorify the Lord.

Be blessed.

---

Verses to Look Back On:

Matthew 16:24-28

Romans 12:1-2

Colossians 3:23-24

1 Timothy 4:11-16

James 1:22-25

1 Peter 4:10-11