Escape to Reality » Steve McVey

“Grace Rules” by Steve McVey

Paul Ellis — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:45:13 +0000

A little over 15 years, ago Steve McVey wrote the best selling book Grace Walk. (Click here to see my review of that book.) Apparently when McVey got to the end of that book he wasn’t done writing, because a few years later out came his follow-up book Grace Rules. The second book, like the first one, takes aim at the subtleties of legalism that often find expression in our churches.

For example, if you’ve been around church a while, you might have noticed something very strange that happens when someone comes to Jesus. Before they are saved, they are told, “It’s all about Jesus! It’s not about you. It’s all about Him and what He’s done for you!” But once they’re saved the tune changes. Now it’s “all about you and what you do for Him!”

Before salvation it’s faith, faith, faith! But once the honeymoon is over, it’s works, works, works! Steve McVey pokes holes in this idiocy:

“Every true believer fully understands that he did nothing to become a Christian. He simply trusted Christ. Yet many believe that they must now do something to become a victorious Christian. So they substitute trying in place of trusting.” (p.21)

In Grace Rules, Steve McVey demolishes the idea that God is looking for us to spend our lives engaged in acts Christian service. God is not some divine employer in the sky and He doesn’t actually need our help with anything. Yet a legalistic mindset reduces Christianity to lifeless works of service. Perhaps you’ve heard it said that, “Your life is God’s gift to you. What you do with your life is your gift to God.” According to Steve McVey, nothing could be further from the truth:

“It really strokes our human ego to think that we can do something for God. Yet the truth is we cannot. Only God can do something for God. In His infinite grace He allows us to participate in what He is doing by placing His life inside us and then expressing that life through us.” (pp.13-14)

God is after so much more that our work. God is after intimacy. Our Father wants us to know Him and abide in Him and allow Him to express Himself to us and through us. As McVey says,

“Spiritual service is not our gift to God, but rather His gift to us.” (p.198)

And that’s not just some pithy saying. When you find yourself resting in a good God, yet at the same time doing the very thing that He put you on the planet for, it is the greatest thrill in the world! Nothing else comes close to living in the sweet spot of being who God made you to be. I’m talking about trusting Him, allowing Him to reveal Himself supernaturally in your circumstances, and bearing fruit effortlessly.

In the 15 years I lived in Hong Kong, I met literally hundreds of missionaries and church workers serving the Lord. For a while I could never figure out why so many were joyless. Many looked like they had lemons for breakfast. This puzzled me, because serving the Lord ought to be a joy (Is 12:3). But it never is when we’re operating under law, when we serve because we think we’re obliged to serve. Serving the Lord is also supposed to be – dare I say it – easy. That’s Jesus’ word, not mine (Mt 11:30). Steve McVey gives a brilliant example of easy work when he tells the story of Philippe.

Philippe came to Atlanta from West Africa, met Steve McVey, heard the gospel and gave his life to Jesus. As a new believer, Philippe visited Steve once a week to learn how to follow Jesus. Each week Philippe asked questions and took extensive notes. Steve McVey only learned later that Philippe was sending his notes to his village chief back in Cameroon. The chief would call all the villagers together and read them Philippe’s notes. Some of the villagers got saved and were asking questions. The chief passed these questions to Philippe who then brought them to Steve.

“Suddenly it hit me. I thought of all the years I had tried to produce something spiritual; all the time that I had spent trying to make a difference. I had sincerely used my abilities for God, but always felt frustrated. Now here was God doing it Himself. I was meeting with one man in Atlanta and I was also evangelizing and discipling a whole village of people in Africa! Only God can do that!” (p.43)

If I was to summarize Grace Rules in a sentence, it’d be this: No one can live the Christian life except Christ. Our role is to trust Him to express Himself through us. Steve McVey asks us to imagine what would happen if the spirit of Mozart suddenly came into you. What would you want to do? You’d reach for the nearest piano and start playing! You would be thrilled by this amazing new ability. You would want to express your new talent often. Whenever people came around you’d say “watch this!” and dazzle them with your creative compositions.

The good news is that someone greater than Mozart has moved in! The mystery of the gospel is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Step aside and let Him shine! I think it was Bill Johnson who said:

“He’s in you and he wants out! He’s in us like a river. He’s not in us like a lake.”

If you are new to the gospel of grace, there are two outstanding books that I recommend you read. One is Destined to Reign by Joseph Prince and the other is Grace Walk by Steve McVey. If you are well established in the grace of God and are looking for pictures of what it means to let Christ live through you, read Grace Rules.

“Grace Walk” by Steve McVey

Paul Ellis — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 06:37:20 +0000

Christians are often surprised to learn that they have been mixing law with grace. People have said to me, “I’m not trying to keep the 10 commandments, so why do you say I’m living under law?” I doubt there are many believers who are trying to live by the 10 commandments. Yet the choices many make show that they are, to some degree, still enslaved by the law.

What does it look like to live under the law? In my last post I said that person with a law mind-set is one who…

is not 100% sure whether they’re 100% forgiven
believes they have a duty or obligation to serve the Lord
thinks “God will bless me as I do my part”
defines discipleship mainly in terms of giving up things

These and similar statements paint a picture of what Christianity looks like for many believers. But this picture is a caricature of New Testament Christianity. It is a powerless, faithless counterfeit that seduces because it appeals to human wisdom even as it denies the finished work of the cross. To live this way is to exalt the flesh and insult the Spirit of grace. These statements also describe what it means to live under self-imposed law. If you live like this you are in danger of setting aside grace.

Now, before you get offended and hit the comment button below, let me give you the best description of the Christian life I know:

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Gal 2:20)

If that verse goes right over your head – what does it mean to be crucified with Christ? what does it mean to live by the faith of the Son of God? – then you might have a flesh problem. Instead of living by the Spirit, you may be trying to please God with your own resources and understanding. Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll eventually fall flat on your face. You’ll end up worn out, burned out, and fruitless.

Or… you could abandon that dead-end way of life and start living by grace!

If grace sounds appealing to you, but you need a little help shaking off the shackles of self, then get a hold of Steve McVey’s brilliant book Grace Walk. This zinger of a book has been around for about 15 years and has sold over a quarter of a million copies. Read this book and you’ll learn why living the life I described above is an inferior alternative to the new life that Jesus offers us. The punch line of Grace Walk is found in the first chapter:

“Jesus Christ will do more through us than we could ever do for Him.” (p.9)

The theme of Grace Walk is, stop trying to make things happen for God, and let Him live His supernatural life through you. God won’t bless the works of your flesh. Rather, He will allow us to come to the end of our self-sufficiency so that we might learn to rest in Him. He is the vine and you are the branch. Apart from Him you can do quite a lot, but none of it will last. So quit trying and start trusting.

Struggling or resting?

Many Christians today are struggling; they’re struggling to get by, struggling to get the victory, struggling to overcome. As Steve McVey warns in his book, there’s a red flag right there. If you’re struggling then you’re not resting, and if you’re not resting then you’re not living by faith. You’re probably walking in the flesh by trying to make things happen in your own strength. As McVey explains,

“God never intended for the Christian life to be a struggle. The Holy Spirit should flow from the life of the Christian as naturally as breathing. But many Christians are hyper-ventilating trying to do something for God.” (p.72)

If you are trying to live up to some personal expectation of what it means to please God (“I must pray,” “I must evangelize”), then you are living under law. If you succeed, you will be filled with self-praise. If you fail, you will feel self-pity. In either case, death will be the result because the law always produces death (Rms 7:5).

Maybe you know what it’s like to be crushed on the millstone of self-imposed law. You try, you fail, and then you feel condemned. You withdraw for a bit and then rededicate your self to God and try again. This is total lunacy! Why do we think that doing the same thing over and over will produce different results? The key to breaking out of this motivation-condemnation-rededication cycle, is to realize that your self has already been co-crucified with Christ. You must take this on faith (it’s in the Bible). Your self cannot live the Christian life. Only Christ can live the Christian life and He wants to live His life through you. Do you trust Him to do that?

The Christian life is not a set of rules or values or expectations; it is Christ expressing Himself through you. Two thousand years ago Jesus walked the earth in a human body. Today He still has a body – it’s His church! – and He wants to reveal Himself to a sick and dying world through that body. But that cannot happen when those in the church are on a flesh-trip preoccupied with self-effort.

Jesus doesn’t want your service; He wants you! Your job is not to produce fruit, but to bear His fruit. To the degree that we are walking in self-sufficiency, to that degree we are walking in the flesh. In Grace Walk Steve McVey puts it like this:

“Before I understood that Christ is my life, my whole lifestyle was characterized by an obsession with right and wrong. Yet, if one is not abiding in Christ, every action is wrong. To abide in Him is to walk in faith; to fail to abide in Christ is to walk after the flesh. Anytime we do things on our own, it is sin, regardless of how our actions may appear.” (p.108)

When you try to do the right thing you invariably end up doing the wrong thing. A preoccupation with right and wrong means you’re living under law. You’re eating from the wrong tree. What you’re doing may be outwardly “good,” but it’ll produce death instead of life. And worse, there will be no end to it for the law will never say “enough.”

A changed life or an exchanged life?

Jesus didn’t suffer and die to give you a new start, but to give you a new life – His life! It is idolatrous to reduce the life of the Spirit to a set of values and disciplines. Such things may appear helpful but they are not. They minister death and condemnation just as effectively as the tablets of stone. So how, then, are we to live? According to Steve McVey,

“Real Christianity is not an imitation but an expression of Christ within us… As we abide in Him, we rest and work at the same time! We rest inwardly while He works outwardly. This is God’s designed method of Christian service. Anything else is empty religious ritual, regardless of how successful or spiritual it may appear.” (p.174)

Jesus used words like “rest” and “easy” and “light” to describe the Christian life. If that doesn’t come close to describing your life, do yourself a favor and read Grace Walk. It will set you free!
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Related posts:
- Two religions: Works and blood
- Mixing grace with works: It’s not about the widow
- see all E2R book reviews here