Seen this pop up in a few places, and its SO CLOSE, but it misses something very important to me and my faith development. It has basically been the crucial step for me feeling like a mature Christian. I theology-vomited on one friends comments, and thought itd be better to just stick it on my own wall. Without further text-walling, the text-wall comment: So I am about to sound like Im picking nits on a very simple, funny joke. 100% awareness of that. Not trying to argue or tear down, just offering thoughts, because its something I think is absolutely essential to Christianity that is constantly gotten wrong, especially by Christians. Salvation - eternal life, union with God, not getting obliterated - is by faith alone, through grace alone. This took me a long-ass time to get my head around, and Im sure I still dont really grok it. We cannot not sin. Sin is in our nature. Its in our flesh. Its in our minds. Were infected. We *are* sin. I could go into why, but this is gonna be long enough. Because of this, we cannot save ourselves. We cannot not do the things, because we are essentially made of the things. The path to salvation is faith - trust in God. But because of the things, because of sin, we cant do that either. The first sin was knowledge of good and evil. The problem is, we now rely on ourselves. So God grants faith by grace, grace meaning doing even though we dont deserve it. God loves us, so he gives us the Holy Spirit who instructs us and intercedes on our behalf. We are clothed in Christ, covering our sin with a new image of perfection. Were still us underneath. We still sin because we still are sin, but we are in part the Spirit of Christ, which grows in us. The prison door of sin is open, and we are slowly being coaxed out of it. I think we can reject this, refuse to leave the prison, but were not bound there anymore. We do the things because thats where we are, but we are slowly being regenerated into new beings. Its sort of a tangled mess. The bottom line though is, by faith through grace. I trust God, I trust his love, I trust his work in me. I still sin, but now I run to God instead of away, especially at my most foul. Thats Gods goal, closeness. Thats love. I think our (Christians) intolerance stems heavily from not understanding this. Its a lot easier to forgive and love and accept when we understand how undeserving and loved and accepted we are. To me, its the foundation for the entire Christian perspective and way of life. Anyway, sorry for text wall. Its something I care about.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 00:11:26 +0000
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