Many people believe that even if we do not always obey God
---- we will be accepted by God, nevertheless. In this logic, the basic
operating principle of Scripture is "I am accepted by God through the
unmerited free grace due from the saving work of Jesus Christ ----
therefore, one does not always need to obey God. They believe we
will be accepted by God through the work done by Jesus to establish the gift of
grace, regardless of anything we do or have not done.
Other people believe they must always obey God
because if they don't God will not answer their prayers, or take them to heaven
upon their death. They say: "if we remove this fear and
talk a lot about God's free grace and unmerited acceptance, what
incentive will anyone have to live a morally good life?" It is
argued that a Scriptural interpretation demanding total obedience to God is the
best way to produce people who will be at their moral best throughout their
everyday lives..
Now, consider that I might be saved only in proportion to my
"good works" Wouldn't there thus be a limit on what
God would want to do for me? I would be like a taxpayer with
"rights". I would have done my civic duty and now I would
deserve a certain quality of life. But if it is really true that I am a
sinner saved only by sheer grace ---- at God's infinite cost ---- then there's nothing more
I need to ask of Him. However, we can see immediately that this
wonderful-beyond-belief teaching of salvation by sheer grace has two edges to
it. On the one hand it cuts away my slavish fear of punishment by
God. God loves us freely, despite our flaws and failures. Yet one
also knows that if Jesus really has done this for us, are we still totally free
agents, and on our own,literally as our own master?. The benefit has been
bought at a price.
But if, when you have lost all fear of punishment, perhaps
you also have now lost all incentive to live an obedient life. So, what
was your motivation in the first place? Perhaps it was only fear.
What other incentive is there? How about GRATEFUL LOVE OF GOD?
Belief in Scripture is often how a person first makes a
connection with God. It gives the person a new relationship with God and
a new identity. We must not think, however, that upon believing
Scripture, the Christian is now finished with the Gospel message. I like
the idea that Martin Luther is alleged to have taught, which I paraphrase here ----
that 'religion' is the default mode of the human heart. One's
"computer" operates automatically in a default mode unless you
deliberately tell it to do something else. So, Luther thought that even
after you are converted by Scripture, your heart will go back to operating on
other principles unless you deliberately, repeatedly set it to
"Scripture-mode".
We habitually and instinctively look to other things besides
God and His grace as our justification, hope, significance and security.
We believe Scripture at one level, but at deeper levels we do not. Human
approval, professional success, power and influence, family and
"tribe" identity ---- all of these things serve as our heart's
"functional trust" rather than what Christ has done, and as a result
we continue to be driven to a great degree by fear, anger and a lack of
self-control. One cannot change such things through mere will-power,
through simply reading Biblical principles and irregularly trying to carry them
out. We must regularly "feed" on Scripture, digesting it and
making it part of ourselves. That is how we will grow spiritually.
Faith in Scripture can restructure our motivations, our
self-understanding, our identity and our view of the world. However,
behavioral compliance to rules without heart-change will be superficial
and fleeting.
God's grace is free, yes, but it is also costly in a sense
---- infinitely so. In his famous text, "The Cost of
Discipleship", Dietrich Bonhoeffer warns about the dangers of what he
calls "cheap grace", the belief which stresses that because God's
grace is free to us, it doesn't really matter what rules we live by. The
solution, he says, is not to return to legalism (not act like a Pharisee), but
to focus on how seriously God takes sin and how only He can save us from sin at
an infinite cost to Himself. Understanding this must and will profoundly
reshape our lives. We will not be able to live in a selfish, cowardly
way. We will stand up for justice, and sacrifice for our neighbor.
And we won't mind the "cost" of following after Christ when we
compare it to the price he paid to rescue us. We will enjoy a grateful
love for Jesus Christ.
Bonhoeffer insisted that the people whose lives remained unchanged
by the expectation of God's grace, didn't really understand its
costliness. Therefore, that they really did not understand
Scripture. They had a general idea of God's universal love, but not a
real grasp of the seriousness of sin and the meaning of Christ's work on our
behalf.
In the end, Martin Luther's old formula still sums things up
nicely. As Luther would say, we are saved by faith alone [not just our
works], but not by a faith that remains alone. Nothing we do can merit
God's grace and favor. We can only believe that God has given the
blessing of grace to us in Jesus Christ, and that we can therefore receive
grace by faith. But, if we truly believe and trust in the one who
sacrificially served us [Jesus], it changes us into people who sacrificially serve
God and our neighbors. If we say "I believe in Jesus" but it
doesn't affect the way we live, the answer is not that now we need to add hard
work to our faith, so much as that we haven't truly understood or believed in Jesus
at all.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Development Team, hoping that you will discover some
personal spiritual growth this Fall.
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