Tag Archives: grace

No Pushover

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Try to imagine what would happen if criminals were let off, in the hope that they would learn their lesson and straighten up.  How well do you suppose that would work?  “You better not steal, because if you do, we’ll haul you into court and pronounce you innocent!”  Dumb, right?   Dumb by human logic, but elegantly effective by God’s logic.

If you haven’t read it already, go back to the previous post (“Facing the Truth About Sin“).  John writes that when followers of Jesus sin and confess, God forgives them and purifies them.  But then he writes this:

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. (1 John 2:1a)

God’s strategy to help you stop sinning is to reassure you that He will forgive you and fix you.  So you won’t miss the point, the rest of that verse says this:

But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. (1 John 2:1b)

How can that possibly work?  In human courts, leniency increases lawlessness.  But, there is a crucial difference:  In human leniency, nobody pays.  The underlying attitude is, “Oh, we’ll just pretend this didn’t happen.  You go home and try to behave…”   That’s not how it works in God’s court.   In God’s court, absolute justice is required, sin must be punished.  And Jesus pays.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2 )

If you fully understand what verse 2 means, then you start to see why verse 1 would work.  When we understand how much it cost to forgive us with complete justice, we are less likely to do it again.

But there is another reason God’s system works.  Because Jesus has fully paid for our sin, when God purifies us (gives us a clean slate, so to speak) (1 John 1:9), He actually washes away the guilt.  Those who study addiction say that one of the most common triggers to compulsively repeating an addictive behavior is guilt.  For example, I’ve been told that people who are hopelessly in debt, wrestling with feeling guilty about it, commonly go out and buy a new car, hoping it will make them feel better.  The same pattern is observed in most addictions.  By paying for and taking on our guilt, Jesus breaks those chains.

The cross is the focal point of God’s Grace and His Truth.  In Truth you are guilty and justice demands a punishment; by Grace He forgives you and pays for you.

The Word (Jesus) became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  (John 1:14)

God truly forgives but He is no pushover.

Free Food! Free Drink!

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Years ago I worked for a couple of days at a fundraising concert for the US Ski Team.  Among the perks for the workers at that event was free skiing and free gourmet food and drink, served at a large, covered pavilion, halfway down one of the ski slopes.  We would ski up to this big tent, show our passes, go in and chow down on some of the tastiest food I’ve ever eaten.  Here’s a question for you:  If you could get invited to that, would you go?  Me too!    Here’s another invitation.  This one is not hypothetical; it’s real and your name is one the card:

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy  and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on  what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.”  Isaiah 55:1-3a

Isaiah gave advance notice of that party; Jesus delivered the invitation:

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.   John 6:35

Can this be for real?  God said it again:

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.  He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.   Revelation 21:6-7

Okay, then – how do I sign up?   Isaiah included the instructions for your RSVP:

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.  Isaiah 55:6-7

You Choose: Rules or Rest?

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Religion may make you feel good, but it doesn’t work.  Religions tell you what you have to do  to be okay with God.  Religions give you the rules to follow so you can make the connection with God happen.  But God says He makes the connection, that He will live in our hearts to bring us to life (Isaiah 57:15 – See “In a Nutshell”).  But He doesn’t do that for the religious; He does it for the “lowly and contrite.”  Religion gives you a score and tells you how well you are doing.  Lowliness puts you in touch with the reality that you can never measure up to God’s standard of righteousness – not even close.  Lowly people hunger for righteousness; religious people tend to think, “I’m not perfect, but I’m doing better than those other guys.”  Jesus comforted and loved the lowly.  He had fits with the religious.

This is not a new problem.  700 years before Jesus, God criticized the religious people because they were making up rules for people to follow to get to God.  He said,

“For it is: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule, a little here, a little there.”  Very well then, with foreign lips and strange tongues God will speak to this people, to whom he said, “This is the resting place, let the weary rest”; and, “This is the place of repose”— but they would not listen.  So then, the word of the Lord to them will become: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule; a little here, a little there— so that they will go and fall backward, be injured and snared and captured. Isaiah 28:10-13

God intended for our relationship with Him to be characterized by rest, not rules.  Coming to  God was intended to be coming to the resting place, the place of repose.  But humans wanted rules, so we could be in control and so we could keep score.  So God said, “Very well then, have it your way.”  And God’s Word for the religious became distorted into “do and do, rule on rule, a little here, a little there.”

But for the lowly, for those who know they can’t measure up by following the rules, God comes and lives with them, reviving their hearts.  Jesus says, “Let Me be in charge; you come find rest in Me.”

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28

You can have it your way.  Which way do you choose: rules or rest?