Résumé-writing professionals, I heard on the radio, now demand upwards of $350 for their services. That page-long document is often a make-or-break reflection of a person’s accomplishments and abilities. The tricky thing about a long list of paper applause is that, a good thing for your career life is a horrible thing for your spiritual life.

I was reminded of that last month as I sat in a green plastic arena chair.

Tim Keller, the morning Bible teacher at our recent Campus Crusade U.S. Staff Training in Colorado, spoke of a VPR—our Validating Performance Record, a spiritual résumé, of sorts.

It can look different for each of us since it’s about where we might find our significance. Where is my success depicted? How do I justify my existence?

  • Job title
  • The professional or personal project just completed
  • House, car or bank accounts
  • Children
  • Ministry

“The world believes,” says Tim, “that if there’s a God, He must work the same way as the world does—seeing their [résumé].”

This was my story. Well, in part. I knew that my salvation was a gift—by faith alone. Yet a strange thing happened after my decision to follow Jesus. Slowly—like slime oozing down a wall—I started living the Christian life like it was up to me.

Tim gave a great analogy of this wrong thinking. It’s like you’ve been a prisoner. By grace of the judge you’ve been released and are free. But with no clothes, no friends, no job, you set out to prove yourself. Thank you God for taking my sin and setting me free. Now, I’m going to be so good. You’ll be proud. I’m going to read my Bible and I vow I’m going to be nice to that one coworker who drives me crazy. You just wait and see.

That was an exhausting way to attempt to live. Exhausting and it didn’t work. Just like how I couldn’t be good enough on my own to earn salvation, I can’t be good enough on my own to live out the Christian life.

I understood the forgiveness part of my new life in Christ but was oblivious to the new reality—a divine swap, of sorts. Justification. Jesus took my sin. I get His righteousness. (See Romans 3:20-24, 28.) He becomes my VPR, my spiritual résumé. Wow. When I understand this, gone is the striving. I don’t need to prove myself. Like Paul in Philippians 3, I can list my résumé and pronounce it like a garbage pile.

Marcus Lohn (sp?) says, “To speak of forgiveness is to say, ‘You may go, you’ve been let off of your penalty.’ But to speak of justification is to say, ‘You may come.’”

Come.

Come to the One who has laid down His life for me and has given me His very identity and His power to live the Christian life.

Sitting in Moby Arena as Marcus Lohn’s words were said, tears came. How much I needed to be reminded that the Christian life isn’t just one of being let off the hook; it’s one where the Father looks at me and says, “Angie, come. All I have is yours.”

Then, I looked at the 7,000 of us in that room—full-time Christian workers who, just like me, probably really needed to hear that.

Then, I thought about those who will hear about Jesus from those 7,000 pair of lips.

At the very least, my pair of lips speak a little differently since my time in Colorado, after being reminded of the invitation to put down my résumé and simply come.

by Guy Gerrard, used with permission

by Guy Gerrard, used with permission