Some thoughts while I am away.
Sometimes I think the Church is afraid to lose its purity. I am more concerned that she loses her Grace.
Fear has never accomplished any good and leaving people alone is not the call of the Church.
Sometimes in an effort to remind people the cost of the cross ... we withold grace until we are sure they understand their sin ... but its in giving of our grace that we remind people that they need to go to Jesus to find their own. People understand their sin without our help... its Grace they need help understanding.
Would love to hear your feedback.
8 comments:
I'm not sure that I totally agree that people understand their sin anymore then anyone can understand grace. However, people certainly do understand the effect of sin and the effect of grace. Actually, maybe it's not even that people understand the effect of sin/grace but rather that they feel the effects...
My two cents.
Have a rad trip.
Mark,
Great thoughts.
My mom and I were just talking about this the other day. From her perspective she has seen that the church or the people she knows of the church seem to know a lot to point out sin, but no little about grace.
That seems ass backwards to me. I think in some way or another we all know our down fall's or sin if you want to call it that (Now out come the SIN IS SIN people - wooboo!). But truth is I don't think many people know there is a safe to turn no matter what or how many down fall's you have.
I like grace, it helps me sleep better. (I don't mean Grace as in a girls name, I don't think people my age ever were named Grace... never mind I'll shut up.) Oh and I love my wife, just want to clarify that.
People don't understand their sin. I'm not confident in my understanding of my sin either. I need God to remind me and bring me to repentance regularly (end of Psalm 139).
I see our role as Christians to help bring UNDERSTANDING of sin, (not conviction Holy Spirit does that), and EXPERIENCE of grace.
Jer and Rob - I agree ... if understanding of Sin is mental assent then no people do not understand it but they do at the core of who they are understand the effects of sin.
Agreed.
Welcome back hope you had a good time.
People don't understand their sin. Sure they feel the affects of it, we all do. But do they relate it with their "sin"? In order to understand grace, you need to understand sin. I judge bailing you out of jail would me meaningless to you if you didn't think you did anything wrong... The two go hand in hand. As far as the church goes, it depends what church you go to, but I would say that in general, the church needs to understand sin!
I agree with anonymous. Forgiveness is irrelevant if I'm not aware of my sin. The law in fact is what convicts us, leads us to Christ who is the embodiment of grace AND truth. We need both. Grace and truth together in balance say "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.." Just look at the parable of the pharisee and publican going to the temple to pray..the publican was acutely AWARE of his sin, and his response was a pentinant and humble approach to God..the pharisee on the other hand was confident, self-assured and self-satisfied, feeling quite spiritually secure, thinking he had a good relationship with God. God didnt hear the Pharisee's so-called prayer. The longer we are Christians, the more tempted we are to become like the pharisee in our approach and attitude toward God, but the problem is, we don't know it because we are blind. Let's pray like the publican asking for mercy and for the eyesalve in order to really see. The only thing that I would add to anonymous, is instead of using the word"understand", I would use the word, "revelation". People, and I include myself, need a greater revelation of Jesus Christ and his character: his holiness, his love, his righteousness and his power and beauty..because if we did have a fuller revelation, the fear of God would fall upon us to such a degree that discussing this would be irrelevant..~CJC
Jeremy I agree with you...I'm quite convinced that people don't understand their sin anymore. But rather are both blinded to their sin and therefore blinded to the grace that is offered and then therefore scoffed at.
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