One-Two-Three …
You may need some practice to do “The Gospel Waltz.”
by Holly Mackle
I ’M GENERALLY RIGHT in my own eyes. Perhaps more precisely stated, I’m normally right in my own eyes. I also happen to have zero cavities, a fact that my husband likes to bring up when it underscores a point he wants to make — namely how I think I’m never wrong. It’s easy for me to be tempted to think this is mere jealousy as his own mouth may have a mortgage, but facts are facts. OK … OK … message received, my dear husband. Likely, it’s time for some quick repentance.
Heavy On Repent
My husband is heavy on repentance. It’s no secret that in our marriage he is the chief repenter. Try as I might, he’s just so great at it. My husband says it’s his job, but with me being so knowledgeable at almost everything, I think it would be excellent if I could outdo him at repenting. Wait a second … has my husband set a trap here? Is he trying to get me to be the — ARGH! Outsmarted by my better half!
My husband though — he’s onto something with this repentance thing. It’s a failsafe starting point to draw me toward him in humility, remind us both of what is true of the gospel and our marriage, and motivate us toward the unity of experiencing a fresh reminder of grace together. It’s such a great place to begin because it mirrors the very same starting point from which God invites us to draw near to Him. We see that those who repent to the Lord are met with His compassion in return (see Jas. 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5; Prov. 28:13), are invited to experience all the ways repentance leads to life (see Acts 11:18), and find actual eternal life — not just for the not yet of eternity — but also for the here and now (see Ps. 16:11; Rom. 6:23).
Waltzing Toward One Another
Repentance isn’t just a biblical place to start; it’s the place to start in the easily memorable three-step framework of repent, believe, and fight that my pastor, Bob Flayhart, has coined “The Gospel Waltz,” for how to actually abide in Christ, day in and day out, this side of eternity. Through this lens, we see that God is using every circumstance of our lives to invite us to commune more intimately with Him. No challenging marriage, missed promotion, frustrating season, or physical or metaphorical heartache is beyond His control, and He is willing everything in and around us to mold us in Christlikeness. (See Rom. 8:28; Eph. 1:11.) He’s constantly pursuing our hearts in love to show us our need for Christ and to reveal the beauty and power of the cross. The Gospel Waltz is a tool to help us steady our eyes and hearts on this truth, so that we can readily experience it.
Eyes for the Gospel Waltz
The Gospel Waltz is a dance, a continual three step through repentance, belief, and moving out in trust and obedience (fight) as we commune with Christ. Thinking in terms of the continuity of these three steps reminds our hearts to respond to God’s pursuit of us by acknowledging our sin, brokenness, and need (repent), preaching the gospel afresh to our hearts as is related to our standing and status in Christ, as well as the transforming power of the Holy Spirit (believe), and moving out in new obedience toward the circumstances and relationships He has called us to (fight). When we mess up and find ourselves in sin, lo and behold it’s a fresh opportunity to continue dancing, entering right back in to another one-two-three pattern, taking Christ up on His offerings of fresh mercy and transforming grace. Over time, practicing these three steps in our minds and hearts strengthens the practice, and we can avoid the hazards of getting stuck in traps, such as worldly regret that doesn’t move us onward in fresh faith and action, the passivism of “repent and believe,” or the tentacles of the Texas two-step of “confess and try harder.”
Reframing Repentance
Repentance gets a bad rap, doesn’t it? For many of us, it conjures up feelings of shame or guilt, failure, or having disappointed or disgusted those we care about, and above all, God. But none of these attributes reflect godly repentance. In 2 Corinthians 7:10, we see that godly grief “produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret.” To me, that sounds like a heart being set free, not burdened by a weight it was never intended to carry on its own.
Biblical repentance exhibits biblical humility in surrender and brokenness and contrition — a path where there is no confidence in self-reformation. True repentance says, “God, I’m sorry. I make no promises to do better because unless You supernaturally transform me by Your grace, I will end up giving into temptation again.”
In what feels like a former life, I was a Spanish teacher, trained at the masters level in Spanish Literature. As the years have passed, one would think that my Spanish has just gotten better and better, improving with age and subtlety and skill, as I’ve gone about collecting more bits and baubles of the nuance of a foreign language. I’m embarrassed to say the exact opposite is true. Over time, my Spanish has gotten so bad that I’m embarrassed to reveal my educational and professional history. And what’s even more painful is that with every conversation I now have in Spanish, I can hear myself. I can hear just how bad it is.
I’ve experienced sin in much the same way. After placing my trust in Christ, I assumed I would feel more godly over time. But the only thing that steadily increases is my awareness of the nature of my sin being virally pervasive, harmful, and constant — because the more I learn of God’s Word and His heart, the more unlike Him I realize I actually am.
If I can step back from my frustration in not feeling like I’m getting “better and better” (less sinful) as I age, I can see what God’s getting at: ever-increasing dependence on Him. It turns into an invitation to waltz with Him continually, and not just at the moment of placing trust in Him or in that someday of eternity.
My need of Christ far exceeds my need of a three-month immersive Spanish language refresher program somewhere in Costa Rican beachside territory. My need is so pervasive that it beckons me to be the chief repenter in all relationships, and not just in the one with my husband. But that’s what’s so great about Christ’s pursuit of us and call to us: His continual invitation to fall at His feet and declare afresh, “I can’t do this. Thank you for doing it for me.” This invitation to repent, believe, and fight is always present. He enables us to hear the one-two-three . . . one-two-three . . . and again we begin to waltz afresh with Christ, who gently leads us to begin with repentance.
Alongside her pastor, Bob Flayhart, Holly Mackle is the co-author of Bob’s life sermon, The Gospel Waltz: Experiencing the Transformational Power of Grace. She gardens, writes, and teaches The Gospel Waltz through story from her home in Birmingham, Alabama.
This article originally appeared in HomeLife magazine (January 2024). For more articles like this, subscribe to HomeLife.
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