You Cannot Hold Yourself

Grace reigns — but our capacity to stay in it requires structure, relationship, and the willingness to be truly known. A challenge to move beyond a comfortable, private Christianity and into the kind of accountability that keeps the conscience awake.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning! This is Northworth!

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Grace reigns, but it requires you to be held in it, and you cannot hold yourself. Good morning, this is Northword, the Word of the North Your Week, a daily podcast from St. John's Fort Smith, in collaboration with the Anglican family. I'm your host, Father Aaron. Paul doesn't end Romans 5 with a command, he ends it with a declaration. Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Grace reigns, not willpower, not sustained religious effort, but grace. But our capacity to receive it, to actively stay in it, requires some maintenance. And it requires other people. It requires community. When transgression becomes an unexamined pattern, the conscience becomes seared. Like tissue burned so many times it no longer feels anything. A seared conscience doesn't announce itself with a loud alarm. It is a slow, quiet drift. It is the Christian who prays in the morning, attends on Sunday, and yet has quietly justified their daily patterns until they can no longer hear the gentle promptings of the Holy Spirit. They are living as Christians, but the inner voice has gone quiet. There is one major safeguard against this. You need a spiritual guide in your life. A spiritual father or a spiritual mother, an elder, a spiritual director, someone older in the faith who knows your patterns and has the permission to name them. You need regular confession with a witness. Not because God doesn't know what you've done, because secrecy is the exact ecosystem in which destructive habits form. You need real flesh and blood accountability. Not someone who asks how you're doing and blindly accepts fine. But someone who says, I see a pattern here, and because I love you, I need to name it. Grace is the power. But grace works through structure, through relationships, and through our willingness to be known. Before we close out the week, a word about Isabel's Bread, one of St. John's 90th anniversary sponsors. I'll admit, as Isabel's husband and the beneficiary of Isabel's Bread on a daily basis, I may be slightly biased here, but Isabel's bread is really the best bread in the Northwest Territories. And I'm confident that most of you will agree. The breadstand opens today at 5 p.m. at 135 McDougall. Support a great local business and treat yourself. This has been Northward the Word, the North Your Week, a daily podcast from St. John's Fort Smith in collaboration with the Anglican family. The question this week is not whether you are saved, just whether you are staying awake. Do you have someone who can see your patterns? Bring yourself into relationship this week. That is where grace does its deepest work. And use the text us link in the description to reach out. We would love to hear from you and where you are on your journey. Until next week, may God be with you.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Amen.