Matt Chandler has challenged Christians. He states that Jesus hung on the cross for us. Jesus bridged the gap between God and man (we can approach the Father directly). He atoned for all our sins that fateful day on Golgotha, making a sacrifice that was unjust (we deserved to be on the cross, no Him). He did nothing wrong while He was on earth, yet on that hill outside the walls of Jerusalem divine justice and mercy intersected, prophecy was fulfilled and Jesus modeled self‑giving love and sacrificial obedience.

As I continue my comments from Chandler’s Chapter 4 entitled “Response,” we see how some believers have responded to the call to be more Christlike.

“Faith versus works” is how Chandler describes what some Christians try to do today. God is wanting us to respond to Jesus’ sacrifice by being faithful “but we want to make donations (works)” [65]. Chandler makes his point by turning to the Old Testament and Levitical Law, the centuries-old idea that animal sacrifice is what God wants us to do to atone for our sins.

Chandler imagines God speaking to man saying “I don’t need your (sacrificial) bull. I don’t want your goats…I am trying to communicate to you how disgusting and how horrible your sin is before me…instead of feeling the weight of that and actually repenting, you just keep doing what you’re doing” [65].

Christ’s sacrifice demands a response from man and that response should be what Chandler calls “the response of faith.” But instead of having faith, we want to compile our list of the good things we do and present that to God; surely He will forgive us our sins because we are so nice. We want to open our checkbooks and donate; surely that will please Him as we are feeding the needy, clothing the poor and supporting good Christian ministries with our hard-earned money. Chandler says we are like the Levitical priesthood, we offer our good behaviors like they laid animal sacrifices on the altar. But there is a problem, that altar is closed. The last and greatest atonement was made by Jesus Christ.

This is confusing for many Christians because Chandler seems to be saying that the good work we do as Christians is not that good. Of course, doing good things to help others is beneficial, but the problem is how we are doing it. It is as if we are trying to “leverage” God. If we do enough good things, He has to reward us. Yes, what this amounts to is we think we can “work” our way into heaven.

Additionally, this attitude is grounded in the idea that we can “fix” things. I have suffered from this myself as I have felt that I had the ability to cure myself of chronic sin. It is a “self-help” approach to life. If I have enough will-power, I can cure my problems. If I consult people smarter than I am and I have enough knowledge, I can figure out what to do. If I exert enough energy, I can work fix myself through increasing my strength.

Here is the truth about what God wants. We can sacrifice all we want, we can do all the good works we can fit into the day and we can apply all the self-help formulas that we can read about but God wants heart change. God wants us to love Him so much that we don’t want to sin any more; we love Him more than the sin. Chandler writes that it is like the alcoholic who declares he is free of alcohol on Sunday but on Monday he wants to drink and feels he needs to. He is in agony because he knows he can’t. Is that freedom from sin? It’s not. The alcoholic has not had a change of heart.

“Acts of sacrifice, in the end, don’t do anything. They do not cleanse your conscience, and they do not set your heart on the things of God” [Chandler 67]. Chandler knows that too many Christians listen to their heads. The mind has an agenda all its own, but the heart is on a different track. The heart is attuned to The Holy Spirit and to hear the Spirit requires silence. God’s messages most often come in a whisper, a Holy Spirit whisper. Good works are worthwhile, but they are not designed to cleanse our hearts. What Christians should always focus on is the good news of the cross and if we maintain that focus, real heart transformation can occur.

We live in a hustle-bustle world that values doing things. That is our culture. What is needed is patience, gentleness and quiet. When we begin to work that into our lives we can hear the gentle and trustworthy words of the heart, a heart formed by The Holy Spirit.

Chandler closes the “Faith versus Works” section of Chapter 4 with a quote from Paul as he writes in Romans 3: 28: “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” His last sentence of this section says it all: “The only acceptable response to the Gospel is nothing less than a heart of faith”