FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth… For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  (John 1:14,16,17 ESV)

There is more nonsense per square inch about worldliness than perhaps any other subject in the Christian life.  Usually, worldliness is reduced to a laundry list of taboos -- the nasty nine, the terrible ten, or the dirty dozen, depending on whose list you go by.

The do's and don'ts sound like they come straight from Sinai, but the truth of the matter is, they originate from our own parochial prejudices.

We want to watch out for worldliness, but we also want to watch out for the legalistic labels that some condescending Christians stick on many areas of life where God has granted us freedom.

The key to an abundant life under the lordship of Christ is not trying to impress Him with the check marks on our laundry list but trying to live like He lived -- full of grace and truth, not full of legalism and pious platitudes. 

-- Charles R. Swindoll in “The Practical Life of Faith” [1990] 

#6211

LONGING FOR GOD

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”  (Matthew 5:6 NIV)

We do not come to be with Jesus because we are righteous or strong. The people gathered around Jesus because they were needy. In His [Sermon on the Mount] Jesus begins to explain the profound difference between the religious leaders’ teaching about attaining righteousness through their interpretation of the Law and traditions and the greater righteousness that moves beyond the Law to a relationship with God in Christ.

Our sinful, restricted self is uncomfortable and fights being revealed. But deeper within us is the longing for God, placed within our true self by God. We come to God as we are: caught by sin and longing for God; and we are always met by God’s grace and mercy. 

-- Wendy Miller in “Learning to Listen”

#5798

FINE, UPLIFTING AND GOOD

“Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.”  (Proverbs 3:7 ESV)

You have but to look at our culture to realize that it’s perishing. We have broken with our traditional and spiritual past and find ourselves stumbling and lurching into a new dark age of uncertain and bewildered character. There is a growing sense that nothing is true and everything is permitted. “The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men.” (Psalm 12:8)

Evil, morbid influences lead us into ever-deepening confusion -- a clutter of distortions, half-truths, bald-faced lies and an addled notion of tolerance that demands we accept everyone’s version of truth. There is no final standard; everything varies according to the weather.

G. K. Chesterton once observed that morality, like art, consists of drawing a line. Now no one knows where to draw the lines! Once there were boundaries and absolutes. Now, traditional concepts of right and wrong have warped so radically and thoroughly that no one knows what is fine, uplifting and good.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17 NRSV) 

-- Adapted from David Roper in “A Beacon in the Darkness: Reflecting God’s Light in Today’s World”

#5208

BECAUSE GOD IS GRACIOUS

“The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”  (Psalm 145:8 ESV)

The two great features of Protestant theology are its doctrines of justification by faith and the law as the rule of life.  This is a synthesis of New Testament grace and Old Testament ethics.  With this synthesis, Protestants have solved the problem of finding a gracious God, but they have not solved the problem of finding gracious neighbors.  They can fellowship with God because He is gracious; but they find it difficult to fellowship with one another, because they are not so gracious.

-- Robert D. Brinsmead in “Justification by Faith” 


#4549

THE ONLY OPINION THAT COUNTS

“Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”  (Psalm 119:105 NIV)

George Will writes in “Men at Work”: "Baseball umpires are carved from granite and stuffed with microchips…they are professional dispensers of pure justice.  Once when Babe Pinelli called Babe Ruth out on strikes, Ruth made a populist argument.  Ruth reasoned fallaciously (as populists do) from raw numbers to moral weight: 'There's 40,000 people here who know that last one was a ball, tomato head.' Pinelli replied with the measured stateliness of John Marshall: 'Maybe so, but mine is the only opinion that counts'."

Christians are also pressed by the weight of numbers aligned against the moral law of God.  But the Christian knows that in the end, only one opinion counts: that of the beneficent Umpire of all human affairs.

-- Mark Turnbough

#4339