![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
He Loves Me
Jan. 6th, 2011 12:21 pmYes. I am still reading it!!
Part of Chapter 18, So Sin Isn't Important to God?
"Who hasn't seen people use God's grace as an excuse to guiltlessly chase their own agenda? They accept God's forgiveness and an eternity in heaven but go on living in the same captivity as the world around them. not wanting to apportion "cheap grace" to people who don't want to do things God's way, we find ourselves constructing a list of expectations to help define what a true Christian does.
It's as if we can keep the message of grace intact only for the first fifteen minutes of someone's birth into God's kingdom. After that we start loading them down with the obligations of being a good Christian: 'Of course we are saved by grace, but that doesn't me we can just sit around and do nothing. God is a loving Father, but don't take advantage of that because he is also a severe Judge. We are not saved by our works, but we still need to live lives that please him.' The latter usually consists of some mix of Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, and righteous deeds.
By embracing this 'but' theology, we end up right where we began, with a performance-based relationship with God. We have to live every day concerned about whether we have done enough to be good Christians and judge others around us with the same standard. This takes away not only the joy of knowing God, but also the encouragement of our relationships with one another.
Whenever we add anything to God's work on the cross, the message is distorted and we rob it of its power. Paul made it clear that the cross alone had totally transformed him: 'May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world' (Gal 6:14).
Grace doesn't need any add-ons. Even though Paul watched people who used their newfound freedom as an excuse for the flesh and warned them not to do so, he knew he could never change them by adding human effort to God's grace. He knew the fix lay elsewhere.
It is as paradoxical a truth as Jesus' warning that we save our lives by losing them: living in grace leads to freedom from sin; living in his judgement leads to even greater sin. It has always been so, though it defies human logic. That's because we are far more used to being conformed by external pressures than we are to being transformed by his inner presence. Many, having never experienced the latter, doubt it will even work.
But it does. Once you experience God's delight over you as his child and the joy of friendship that produces, you will find yourself abandoning your own desires and embracing his. Of course that delight doesn't mean he affirms everything you do. He simply knows that without him you are powerless against sin and that whatever strength of will you can conjure up will last only a few months before fading into a deeper bondage.
So God still cares about sin--deeply! Sin destroys what he loves. He wants to change you by teaching you how to live loved every day. When you learn to recognise his voice in your ear and his hand in your life, you will want to be even more like him.
We make a fatal mistake when we try to force Scripture to offer redemption to those who want to go to heaven but who do not want a relationship with the living God. By trying to offer some minimal standard of conduct that will allow them to qualify for salvation while continuing to pursue their own agendas, we distort the gospel and destroy its power, and we concoct legalistic games to give them a false sense of security.
In fact, the New Testament has nothing to say to people who want God's salvation without wanting him. The Scriptures are an unabashed invitation to live as a child of the most incredible Father in the universe. As you do, you will learn to be like him. You will discover that God's way is better than anything you can imagine, and you'll lay down your agenda to embrace his.
Grace doesn't mitigate all the consequences of sin. Certainly it allows God to forgive us so that our relationship with him is unimpeded by our failures, and it does negate the culmination of sin in spiritual death. But grace doesn't cancel out the temporal consequences of sin.
If I vent my anger on my children, grace doesn't stop the damage it does to them or what it destroys in me. The person who engages in immoral behaviour may still get pregnant or contract a fatal disease. If you take advantage of people for your own gain, they still experience the loss or the pain. A murderer's victim is still dead.
Viewed this way, sin is its own punishment. I used to look at sin with longing, seeing it as a forbidden pleasure God denied me to prove my sincerity. I could look at those who seemed to get away with it in envy because I could not. But sin diminishes who God really made us to be. Putting our wisdom and desires above his distorts who we really are and leaves a wake of hurt people behind us.
No one who understands the Father's grace will think it lets us get away with sin. Rather, it allows us to see our weaknesses and failures in the full light of God's love. It encourages us to invite the Father into the darkest places of our hearts and ask him to change us.
That's why I'm suspicious of those who think repentance undoes the consequences of their sin and that people should just forgive and forget. True repentance does not deny the pain we've caused others but owns up to it. Forgiveness isn't a covering for sin, but a reason to be honest with our faults and seek to rectify whatever damage our sins have caused others."
- He Loves Me - Wayne Jacobsen. There are so many good things in here, I wish I could type it all up!!
Part of Chapter 18, So Sin Isn't Important to God?
"Who hasn't seen people use God's grace as an excuse to guiltlessly chase their own agenda? They accept God's forgiveness and an eternity in heaven but go on living in the same captivity as the world around them. not wanting to apportion "cheap grace" to people who don't want to do things God's way, we find ourselves constructing a list of expectations to help define what a true Christian does.
It's as if we can keep the message of grace intact only for the first fifteen minutes of someone's birth into God's kingdom. After that we start loading them down with the obligations of being a good Christian: 'Of course we are saved by grace, but that doesn't me we can just sit around and do nothing. God is a loving Father, but don't take advantage of that because he is also a severe Judge. We are not saved by our works, but we still need to live lives that please him.' The latter usually consists of some mix of Bible reading, prayer, church attendance, and righteous deeds.
By embracing this 'but' theology, we end up right where we began, with a performance-based relationship with God. We have to live every day concerned about whether we have done enough to be good Christians and judge others around us with the same standard. This takes away not only the joy of knowing God, but also the encouragement of our relationships with one another.
Whenever we add anything to God's work on the cross, the message is distorted and we rob it of its power. Paul made it clear that the cross alone had totally transformed him: 'May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world' (Gal 6:14).
Grace doesn't need any add-ons. Even though Paul watched people who used their newfound freedom as an excuse for the flesh and warned them not to do so, he knew he could never change them by adding human effort to God's grace. He knew the fix lay elsewhere.
It is as paradoxical a truth as Jesus' warning that we save our lives by losing them: living in grace leads to freedom from sin; living in his judgement leads to even greater sin. It has always been so, though it defies human logic. That's because we are far more used to being conformed by external pressures than we are to being transformed by his inner presence. Many, having never experienced the latter, doubt it will even work.
But it does. Once you experience God's delight over you as his child and the joy of friendship that produces, you will find yourself abandoning your own desires and embracing his. Of course that delight doesn't mean he affirms everything you do. He simply knows that without him you are powerless against sin and that whatever strength of will you can conjure up will last only a few months before fading into a deeper bondage.
So God still cares about sin--deeply! Sin destroys what he loves. He wants to change you by teaching you how to live loved every day. When you learn to recognise his voice in your ear and his hand in your life, you will want to be even more like him.
We make a fatal mistake when we try to force Scripture to offer redemption to those who want to go to heaven but who do not want a relationship with the living God. By trying to offer some minimal standard of conduct that will allow them to qualify for salvation while continuing to pursue their own agendas, we distort the gospel and destroy its power, and we concoct legalistic games to give them a false sense of security.
In fact, the New Testament has nothing to say to people who want God's salvation without wanting him. The Scriptures are an unabashed invitation to live as a child of the most incredible Father in the universe. As you do, you will learn to be like him. You will discover that God's way is better than anything you can imagine, and you'll lay down your agenda to embrace his.
Grace doesn't mitigate all the consequences of sin. Certainly it allows God to forgive us so that our relationship with him is unimpeded by our failures, and it does negate the culmination of sin in spiritual death. But grace doesn't cancel out the temporal consequences of sin.
If I vent my anger on my children, grace doesn't stop the damage it does to them or what it destroys in me. The person who engages in immoral behaviour may still get pregnant or contract a fatal disease. If you take advantage of people for your own gain, they still experience the loss or the pain. A murderer's victim is still dead.
Viewed this way, sin is its own punishment. I used to look at sin with longing, seeing it as a forbidden pleasure God denied me to prove my sincerity. I could look at those who seemed to get away with it in envy because I could not. But sin diminishes who God really made us to be. Putting our wisdom and desires above his distorts who we really are and leaves a wake of hurt people behind us.
No one who understands the Father's grace will think it lets us get away with sin. Rather, it allows us to see our weaknesses and failures in the full light of God's love. It encourages us to invite the Father into the darkest places of our hearts and ask him to change us.
That's why I'm suspicious of those who think repentance undoes the consequences of their sin and that people should just forgive and forget. True repentance does not deny the pain we've caused others but owns up to it. Forgiveness isn't a covering for sin, but a reason to be honest with our faults and seek to rectify whatever damage our sins have caused others."
- He Loves Me - Wayne Jacobsen. There are so many good things in here, I wish I could type it all up!!
