I love one on one conversations. It's very fueling and inspiring for me. I find, very often, that it is during such interactions with others that God speaks to me. Today I had one of those encounters during a conversation with a good friend from church. We were discussing the issue of grace and sin and whether or not someone can still be identified with his or her sin after coming to Christ. For example, can someone who is a recovering alcoholic or who has same-sex attraction sincerely be a follower of Jesus Christ? Well, I posited the explanation that Scripturally, someone cannot accept Christ as their Redeemer and continue in a life of sin. Paul is emphatic about this throughout Romans 6 (for instance, verses 1-2 Well then, shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound? Absolutely not! We died to sin, how can we continue to live in?). It is a mockery of Christ's sacrifice to free us from the bondage of sin to continue in it. Galatians 5: 1 declares that "it is for freedom that Christ has set us free! Stand firm then and do not let yourself become burdened again by the yoke of slavery." Furthermore, Scripture tells us that "God is light and in Him, there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5) and that sin separates us from God because of His holiness (Isaiah 59:2). My conclusion being that once we become believers, the power of sin is broken and we can have freedom. We should no longer want to walk in that darkness that Christ delivered us from because we know His freedom and His fellowship.
The conversation enlightened me to something different, however: the question of why Christians are so concerned with behavior and appearance even in the midst of God's grace to cover our short-comings. I don't know about you, but I'm still struggling to surrender the whole of my life to Christ. Jesus and I will work through one area and I'll gain victory only to realize I have another area yet to tackle! When I asked Christ to be my Redeemer and Lord, He saved me and forgave right then and there. But the baggage of sinful habits I had accumulated may take a lifetime to remedy. For some people with more baggage to work through their progress may be a little harder to track, but that's why this is a relationship. It has ups and downs. It's a journey.
Reflecting on all of this, I realized that too often those inside the church still don't quite get the grace thing. Now, when I say grace, I don't mean we condone sin or brush it under the carpet. I'm meaning patience with people where they are; not expecting them to be where we THINK they should, but rather walking alongside of them helping them to work through and process what God is doing and trusting God to bring Him to His truth. Instead, we think that we have to have it all together and if we don't, we have to pretend we do so the outside world doesn't think we're a bunch of failures and screw ups and that somehow ruins God. NEWSFLASH: when we do this, we more often than not come off as hypocrites and in my experience that paints a worse picture of God than a bunch of screws up still trying to figure it out but covered by and saved by a BIG God's grace.
Another newsflash? GOD DOESN'T NEED DEFENDING. He's God. He's big. He created everything. He was the ONLY one perfect enough to die to save us AND come back from the dead. I think He's got things handled.
As I was driving back from the grocery store later this evening, I was listening to Air1 and Brant Hansen said these words "We [Christians] are too concerned with trying to defend the Brand." He went on to read an exerpt from a secular psychology magazine that hit the nail on the head. In a nutshell, the article said that no one is perfect. When we try to spin the embarassment and failure in our lives we do our fellow humans an injustice. We need to share these instances will others so that they will know they are not alone. The world needs to know that it's okay to mess up. They need to be extended grace. They need to know that others are fumbling to figure out life. As Christians, we need to let the world know that we're pretty jacked up too! BUT there is freedom, there is redemption, there is healing, and there is hope. There is Savior who loves them enough to walk the journey with them. Christians, we need to stop trying to defend God. Stop trying to defend the Brand. Start being love and grace to a broken world. Let God do the rest.
The conversation enlightened me to something different, however: the question of why Christians are so concerned with behavior and appearance even in the midst of God's grace to cover our short-comings. I don't know about you, but I'm still struggling to surrender the whole of my life to Christ. Jesus and I will work through one area and I'll gain victory only to realize I have another area yet to tackle! When I asked Christ to be my Redeemer and Lord, He saved me and forgave right then and there. But the baggage of sinful habits I had accumulated may take a lifetime to remedy. For some people with more baggage to work through their progress may be a little harder to track, but that's why this is a relationship. It has ups and downs. It's a journey.
Reflecting on all of this, I realized that too often those inside the church still don't quite get the grace thing. Now, when I say grace, I don't mean we condone sin or brush it under the carpet. I'm meaning patience with people where they are; not expecting them to be where we THINK they should, but rather walking alongside of them helping them to work through and process what God is doing and trusting God to bring Him to His truth. Instead, we think that we have to have it all together and if we don't, we have to pretend we do so the outside world doesn't think we're a bunch of failures and screw ups and that somehow ruins God. NEWSFLASH: when we do this, we more often than not come off as hypocrites and in my experience that paints a worse picture of God than a bunch of screws up still trying to figure it out but covered by and saved by a BIG God's grace.
Another newsflash? GOD DOESN'T NEED DEFENDING. He's God. He's big. He created everything. He was the ONLY one perfect enough to die to save us AND come back from the dead. I think He's got things handled.
As I was driving back from the grocery store later this evening, I was listening to Air1 and Brant Hansen said these words "We [Christians] are too concerned with trying to defend the Brand." He went on to read an exerpt from a secular psychology magazine that hit the nail on the head. In a nutshell, the article said that no one is perfect. When we try to spin the embarassment and failure in our lives we do our fellow humans an injustice. We need to share these instances will others so that they will know they are not alone. The world needs to know that it's okay to mess up. They need to be extended grace. They need to know that others are fumbling to figure out life. As Christians, we need to let the world know that we're pretty jacked up too! BUT there is freedom, there is redemption, there is healing, and there is hope. There is Savior who loves them enough to walk the journey with them. Christians, we need to stop trying to defend God. Stop trying to defend the Brand. Start being love and grace to a broken world. Let God do the rest.
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