I had gotten into a discussion with a friend recently on the subject of “cheap grace” which I will define here as “mercy without repentance” so I was continuing with my personal study for more understanding.
There are many people, I believe, who think that God Almighty will be gracious and allow them to enter into a “happily ever after” state of rest even though they live ugly, unrepentant lives and couldn’t care less about God’s plan in the here and now. I think they are in for a horrible shock.
I was reading Ezekiel 33 this morning struggling to understand a confusing passage and I wondered- why doesn’t God just clearly spell it out? He surely could have. Why are some things in the Bible still a mystery causing debate among Christians?
Suddenly I realized- What I do with the difficult passages of Scripture exposes my heart!
Do I ignore them? Exposed! Do I interpret them as cheap and easy salvation? I’m exposed!
Do I study hard and try to understand how to apply the principles to my life?
What do I do with them?
It suddenly occurred to me that God may have intentionally made the meaning of certain passages less clear and understandable. After all, He could’ve said “Thou shalt NOT… and clearly spelled it out but He didn’t. And He sees how we handle that.
He doesn’t want us to just keep a list of rules and laws. He wants us to love Him. He wants us to live for Him- please Him- honor Him in all we do. He created us for a love relationship. He doesn’t need my service or my money. He wants me to trust Him and obey what I understand and ideally to be growing- maturing- trying to understand more.
It was a sobering moment. He knows every thought I have. He sees my motive. He knows me better than I even know myself. What an amazing and personal God!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Astounding Paradox
The enemy of our soul is truly the great deceiver and continues to do an amazing job of blinding God’s people. I recently read a powerful article on Biblical counseling and the author said that the two great pastoral challenges are “to convince the lost man that he is enslaved to sin and to convince the saved man that he is not”.
We are so deceived. Our enemy has made us powerless.
I have a Christian friend who splashes her life around wildly like globs of water casually tossed about and then wonders why she has no sense of accomplishment- no sense of purpose or fulfillment. When challenged with the idea of funneling her energies and surrendering to God’s plan she says she wants to be FREE!- she doesn’t want to lose her individuality and unique characteristics.
Water splashed around willy-nilly is not free- it’s worthless and it evaporates into nothingness. Water channeled through a pipe or hose has not lost its character and individuality- it is purposeful, useful, valued. It cleanses, refreshes, it has power because it is directed by the pipeline. The enemy of this woman’s soul has blinded and deceived her. She truly does have beautiful talents that God would use mightily for His glory and she would feel so purposeful and fulfilled- if only she would surrender to Him. But day after day she chooses to splash her time and talents about and she yearns and longs deeply for a sense of purpose. She keeps starting new things in hopes that they will fulfill her- but they never do and they never will.
Learning to surrender my minutes to a great, all powerful, all loving God, and allowing Him to direct my energies has been the most freeing and soul-satisfying experience of my life. But let’s face it- in our flesh we don’t want to be under the authority of God- we want to BE God.
That is another foundational issue that I read in that same paper- every second of every day we are either trying to BE God or be under God. I keep thinking about that.
In everything we must consider God’s plan. Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. But in our flesh- we don’t want to consider the will of God. We want to consider ourselves wise enough. And so we splash our lives around- throwing away life-time- money- energy and our enemy profits. Only God gives life- purpose- fulfillment. "Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." Until we believe that wholeheartedly and surrender all of our hopes and dreams - we are just splashing life away. 1Cor 3 talks about the day when each person's life will pass thru God's holy fire and all of a man's wisdom will be shown to be foolishness and futile.
God is so merciful to subject all of creation to futility- in hope that we will search for deeper meaning and come to find Him. We have to desire truth. Most people want to BE RIGHT but their hearts are not open to receive truth. Pride and a desire to BE God dominates.
The doorway to freedom and fulfillment- is found flat on your face- in humility before Almighty God. It's the most astounding paradox in all of life.
"Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last."
C.T. Studd
We are so deceived. Our enemy has made us powerless.
I have a Christian friend who splashes her life around wildly like globs of water casually tossed about and then wonders why she has no sense of accomplishment- no sense of purpose or fulfillment. When challenged with the idea of funneling her energies and surrendering to God’s plan she says she wants to be FREE!- she doesn’t want to lose her individuality and unique characteristics.
Water splashed around willy-nilly is not free- it’s worthless and it evaporates into nothingness. Water channeled through a pipe or hose has not lost its character and individuality- it is purposeful, useful, valued. It cleanses, refreshes, it has power because it is directed by the pipeline. The enemy of this woman’s soul has blinded and deceived her. She truly does have beautiful talents that God would use mightily for His glory and she would feel so purposeful and fulfilled- if only she would surrender to Him. But day after day she chooses to splash her time and talents about and she yearns and longs deeply for a sense of purpose. She keeps starting new things in hopes that they will fulfill her- but they never do and they never will.
Learning to surrender my minutes to a great, all powerful, all loving God, and allowing Him to direct my energies has been the most freeing and soul-satisfying experience of my life. But let’s face it- in our flesh we don’t want to be under the authority of God- we want to BE God.
That is another foundational issue that I read in that same paper- every second of every day we are either trying to BE God or be under God. I keep thinking about that.
In everything we must consider God’s plan. Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. But in our flesh- we don’t want to consider the will of God. We want to consider ourselves wise enough. And so we splash our lives around- throwing away life-time- money- energy and our enemy profits. Only God gives life- purpose- fulfillment. "Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." Until we believe that wholeheartedly and surrender all of our hopes and dreams - we are just splashing life away. 1Cor 3 talks about the day when each person's life will pass thru God's holy fire and all of a man's wisdom will be shown to be foolishness and futile.
God is so merciful to subject all of creation to futility- in hope that we will search for deeper meaning and come to find Him. We have to desire truth. Most people want to BE RIGHT but their hearts are not open to receive truth. Pride and a desire to BE God dominates.
The doorway to freedom and fulfillment- is found flat on your face- in humility before Almighty God. It's the most astounding paradox in all of life.
"Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last."
C.T. Studd
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