With safety goggles and long white lab coat on, I began the weekly lab experiment in my high school chemistry class many years ago. I knew that if my measurements were off, I probably wouldn’t cause an explosion, but I would, at the very least, make a mess. I had to be aware of and carefully measure each chemical that I used.
Andrew Wommack makes a salient point about the importance of balance in his book, Living in the Balance of Grace and Faith, through his illustration of the chemicals, sodium and chlorine.
Both sodium and [chlorine] are poisons. If you take either one of them by themselves in sufficient quantity, they’ll kill you. Yet if you mix sodium and [chlorine] together, you get salt, a mineral necessary to sustain your life.
Andrew relates the balance of sodium and chlorine to the balance of grace and faith. Orienting life toward either grace or faith causes problems. Too much faith often results in people drowning in a raging sea of legalism, thinking if they can only perform well enough, then God will respond.
On the other hand, too much grace results in people lounging in a rising pool of carelessness, waiting on God to do everything.
Either way, too much faith or too much grace, the people drown.
Balance is the key. Ephesians 2:8-9 says,
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
This profound passage reveals that our salvation comes by grace through faith.
In our lives, we must balance the call to faith with the realisation of grace. At certain times, we must take action. For example, James 4:7 says,
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
We must actively resist the devil. Other times, we must rest in God. Psalm 46:10 says,
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
We must recognise what God has already done and rest in it. God clearly intended for us to live balanced lives. Balance can be seen throughout God’s creation. He gave us both day and night. He created both plants and animals, which together form a symbiotic relationship. He gave us different seasons to experience times of growth and times of dormancy.
God designed us to be balanced too. From the time He created us in our mothers’ wombs (Ps. 139:13-14), God freely gave us each special gifts through His grace. Our unique gifts combined with all that God has provided through Jesus empowers us to fulfil our calling. But sometimes, through faith, we must respond and take steps in this fulfilment. For example, thousands of people have responded in faith to attend Charis Bible College, and a multitude of graduates have stepped out in faith all across the world to answer God’s call on their lives.
In my own life, I see the importance of balance every day. Not too long ago, my toddler learned to walk. If I had instructed him to only use his left foot or to only used his right foot, he probably would not have had much success. However, he learned to balance himself by using both of his feet.Without balance, we make messes, like a haphazard high school student in chemistry class. Thankfully, God has already given us the formula we need to succeed: live in the balance of grace and faith.To learn more about how you can apply these principles in your life, get Andrew’s Living in the Balance of Grace & Faith book from AWMA’s online store.
