We all want to be good, well those who follow Jesus do. We can pick any book in the bible and we will find reminders to live differently. We're called to live out our sexuality differently, spend our money differently and treat others around us differently. Every Christian tradition agrees that these things are desirable and pleasing to God, but the differences lie in our motivation for doing these things.
Some traditions in our country have played the "You better be good or else!" trump card where God is like Father Christmas who rewards the good and ignores (or punishes) the bad. This can terrify children into obedience and lead to some behaviour change but it seems universal that those brought up under this teaching leave the church, and often their faith, and then redefine God for themselves often in even more un-biblical ways that can never lead to being saved by Jesus. they see the hypocrisy of this teaching and they leave the church and sadly Jesus too.
Others will play the guilt trump card. They remind you of how little you have done and how much Jesus has done for you and they milk the guilt to produce the behaviour the bible clearly does expect from us. Again this drives more people from Jesus than to Jesus because guilt isolates and separates us because we live under it feeling shameful and disgraceful.
The only motivator that can produce real, lifelong, biblical, God pleasing action is the power of Grace. PAul writes about it 1 Corinthians 15:10 "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." Of all the people in the scriptures, few can match up to Paul's mammoth achievements of planting churches, witnessing to the lost and writing half the New Testament. And yet this giant in the faith understands that it was all done fuelled on Grace.
I believe there are two things we need to do to achieve lives that are pleasing to Jesus:
The first is to talk about Jesus, his grace and the completed work of the cross. We've got to help people to fix their eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of faith. We've got to remind people (and ourselves) over and over again of the great redemption story achieved at the cross. Our aim is first and foremost to get people to love Jesus with all their heart, mind, soul and strength and the way we do that is to constantly remind them of what Jesus has done for us, and the amazing, unchanging, holy, perfect, compassionate glorious God that he is. Talk enough about the biblical truths of Jesus enough and those under our leadership will come to love him deeply.
The second thing is then to teach biblically on the kind of life that Jesus calls us to. When they have understood grace and when they love Jesus, they will already be hungry to find things that they can do to please him.
Too often we start the other way round and we will fail, because action built on guilt or legalism cannot sustain. Sometimes the process of sanctification might happen before our salvation: sometimes we start behaving as Jesus wants us to before we love him, and the love then follows and by God's grace he often works outside the box!
But the point is that lasting, lifelong change can only be accomplished through a heart that has been regenerated by the Spirit. A heart that is 'souled out' for Jesus. That happens by grace and then our actions are motivated by grace that leads us to Jesus, instead of guilt or legalism that will lead us from him.
No comments:
Post a Comment