The To-Do List Kind of Christian

Nov 10, 2022

I love To-Do lists!

My “Notes” app on my iPhone is filled with checklists of things I need to do, everything from “Write a Book” to “Put Socks Away.” If it’s going to create stress in my brain, it’s got to go on the list. Sometimes, I’ll even add things to the list that I know I’m going to do anyway simply for the satisfaction of getting to check it off. Anyone else… or am I just crazy?

Now “to-do” lists are a fantastic tool. There have been times when they’ve helped me hack my brain and find greater productivity. But the to-do lists aren’t just to-do lists. They are a picture of how my mind works - always looking for a small success, always wanting to check something off the list, always wanting to know I did a good job.

This was great in college. It has served well in the workplace. But in my faith journey, this has been my biggest struggle.

Seeing our gracious, loving Creator as a to-do list kind of God has been one of my greatest sin struggles.

Growing up, I knew God loved me and offered me grace. But because an approval-seeking society shaped my brain, slowly that began to trickle into my relationship with Him. Yes, God loved me and saved me through grace alone, but I couldn’t really be close to Him until I had figured out how to get it right. Yes, Jesus died on the cross for me, but of course, He would give me the cold shoulder until I felt bad enough about my sins. I even had a notebook during high school where I would tally sin to try and shame myself into stopping.

Somehow, I thought a “record of my wrongs” connected to the Gospel…. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t!

It’s easier as humans to want to do better, be better, and create a structure for our finite minds to understand life. Most times, the structure we create gets God all wrong. That happened to me in the early years of my faith, that’s what’s happening in our consumeristic culture, and, that happened in biblical times. In an attempt to know and seek God, we confine ourselves to legalistic structures and look for the ultimate faith to-do list. Wanting to please God is good, but pridefully trying to win over His love with good works isn’t.

The first-century Christians in Galatia understood my to-do list struggle.

Their faith began with missionary visits from Paul, but soon after, a group of Judaizers - who wanted the Mosaic Law to be a requirement of Christianity - began to influence the Galatian churches. The Galatians sought to be justified in the eyes of God by the Mosaic Law. However, Paul writes to them in the book of Galatians to remind them: justification comes through faith in Christ alone.

Know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

- Galatians 2:16

Our faith is in Christ alone. The Galatians had been offered a free gift, the shackles of sin and law requirements removed from their wrists - and instead of relishing in that gift, they were desperately trying to put their chains back on. The chains of a checklist are exactly what Christ died for. Paul tells us in verse 1 of chapter 5,

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

- Galatians 5:1

Galatians, don’t run back to the bondage you were in. Cristina, drop the to-do list and remember that you have freedom in Christ. The Church at RB, stop trying to work your way to Jesus and realize that His love has already freed you from the slavery of sin.

When we realize this gift of freedom, that’s when true life begins. I always feared that, if I didn’t have my to-do list, I would start taking God’s grace for granted. God is teaching me that the more I relish in the grace and freedom of knowing Christ, the more closely connected I feel to Him, and the easier it is to live a life that is honoring to Him. We don’t find freedom and then run the other way toward sin. No, we seek obedience out of a desire to further enjoy union with Him by saying no to the ways of this world that we know will destroy us.

Paul writes in chapter 5,

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love… So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

- Galatians 5:13, 16

We are free from the To-Do lists of faith!

And then we use that freedom to walk even more closely to the source of it - Jesus Himself. We don’t run to sin. Instead, a heart changed by that kind of love has obedience that flows from deep mercy, rather than trying to work for it. Friend, throw away the “perfect Christian” checklist. Stop putting the shackles back on.