aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent) (01/23/85)
From Julie Harazduk (philabs!jah): > I get the feeling that people's impressions of God's Grace is very different. > I feel in many ways the Lord Jesus Christ calls us to a higher, more > committed walk than the Law did. This is evidenced in Scripture by > phrases such as: pick up your cross and bear it, lose your life to gain > it, I count all things loss, all things are but dung, present yourself > a living sacrifice.... Of course, we are in no way saved by works of > righteousness for our righteousness is as rags to the Lord, not by works > lest any man should boast; it is a total gift of God to all who will call > upon the name of the Lord.... > I believe that ... in many ways we are called to a higher calling > than the Law called us but that we have a better understanding of > God's mercy and His power to forgive us. There is also a more > public knowledge of God's willingness that we should trust and > rely on Him for all things. In addition, I believe that there was > never a time that people were saved by works...I believe that faith > has always been the yardstick by which God judges His people. Ah yes, the question of grace, faith, and works. I am beginning to learn that the famous passage in James (2:14-26) on faith and works is perfectly true -- that faith, if it is really faith, will produce works, and if it doesn't, then it's not a very good faith. C.S. Lewis conveyed the same idea in "Mere Christianity": "If what you call your faith in Christ does not involve taking the slightest notice of what He says, then it is not faith at all, but merely intellectual acceptance of some theory about Him." But I am beginning to see from personal experience what I should have known from Scripture: that the way this works is that you find yourself led to do something which is, shall we say, "out of character" for you, i.e. different from the sort of thing you have done in the past -- and yet "in character", because if you look at it carefully, it's what you really want to do. It generally is something risky. (Prime archetype of this is Abram [who became Abraham], who left his comfortable, settled existence in Mesopotamia to move to a land of which he never owned a foot.) Or at least it seems risky, because it upsets your own self-made security; inasmuch as you will discover that this self-made security is stifling, you will want it upset, but still...it requires courage to move out of it, especially when (actually *because*) you have no idea what's going to happen when you do; only God knows, and you have to trust Him (perhaps have to force yourself to trust Him) to bring you some sort of blessing when you follow His leading -- perhaps not at all the blessing you expect, and perhaps brought through what initially seems to be excruciating pain (the voice of experience here). Let me return briefly to a thought I mentioned above: the idea that things God leads you to do are really "in character". Psalm 37:4 reads, "Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart." I'm sure that many people have read this as, "If you, somehow, sacrifice all your desires, good and bad, to the LORD, He will give you the things you really want." But I am coming to the conclusion that the verse means literally what it says -- He will give you the desires themselves, i.e. He will show you what you really want and indicate that the satisfaction of those desires is allowed to you, indeed is the optimal course of your life. Similarly, in Philippians 2:12-13, Paul writes, "...continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose." In other words, it is not only possible, but likely, indeed certain, that your innermost, truest desires, once God helps you get in touch with them, are what God wants you to do -- for did not He put them in you and show them to you? I suspect that this may be mildly controversial, especially since I do not always find it easy to practice what I've just preached, and since it seems a bit at variance with a lot of established fundamentalist orthodoxy. But anyone who's been on the net long knows that controversy and I know each other quite well.... -- -- Jeff Sargent {decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq "Grate on the Lord, get on His nerves, and you shall get what you want...." :-)