Windows 7 gets it right. Taking a cue from Apple, Microsoft has finally figured out that the proposed solutions offered through daily updates were slowing down the computer’s speed.
When Vista first came out, I thought it would be an improvement over XP. The new operating system looked and felt great.
But the updates drove me nuts. Boot up your computer in the morning and you’d suffer a slow wait as your hard drive “cooked” in the background. Updates loading… reinstallations… time to reboot. Sheesh! The updates were supposed to increase the health of my computer, but instead they became a source of constant frustration.
Sometimes, we face the same trouble in our walk with Christ. When we first come to faith, we are overwhelmed by the grace of God proclaimed to us in the gospel. The gospel is our new operating system, and a life of spiritual productivity follows our being justified by faith.
Over time, however, we revert back to a Law-centered life. Perhaps it’s what we hear in church, from other Christians, or in pop evangelicalism. The Law comes back like the Updates on my Vista computer. We may have started with the gospel as our operating system, but we think we need Law updates in order to make life smoother.
Unfortunately, spiritual productivity slows and frustration builds. Going back to the Law bogs us down and causes us to question our devotion and assurance. Just like we want to yell at our computer and say, “What’s wrong with you?” when it’s moving at a snail’s pace, we pull our hair out when we see our lack of spiritual progress and say, “Something must be wrong with me!”
Slowly but surely, the gospel that we began with – that glorious truth that Christ loved us and gave himself for us – is bogged down in updates that aren’t grounded in that message. So we think: Yes, the gospel is the operating system, but now the updates are where it’s at.
Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with the Law. It’s a good gift from God that shows us the heart of God and reveals our need for salvation. But the Law is not a daily supplement to grace.
Too many times we think: Of course, we are saved by grace, but… That “but” is deadly. It indicates that we think something other than grace will bring life transformation. It doesn’t matter what good activity you put after that “but” (now you need to tithe, now you need to give up this or that, now you need to evangelize). The “but now” bogs the operating system down in updates.
Life transformation doesn’t follow “but”; it follows “so now”. You are saved by grace, so now you are free to live for God in this way or that. Life change is grounded in the gospel alone, not in the Law’s updates.
The Christian life will never run the way it is supposed to if Law is the fuel. The gospel alone has to be the engine. All our good works must flow from sheer gratitude, not an updates-based system that keeps telling me to reboot and start again.
