"Pleasing God is an incredibly good longing. It always will be. But it can't be our primary motivation, or it will imprison our hearts. Pleasing is not a means to our personal godliness, it is the fruit of our godliness for it is the fruit of trust. We will never please God through our efforts to become godly. Rather, we will only please God - and become godly - when we trust God." - From the book TrueFaced, Thrall, McNicol, Lynch, pages 46 and 47.
"But His joy in those who reverence Him, those who expect him to be loving and kind." - Psalm 147:11
I was raised in the church and greatly benefited from my exposure to church life. This experience, however, was not perfect. The emphasis in church training on the disciplines (i.e. pray, Bible study, etc.) is important but can be detrimental if it becomes the focus of a seeker to place more emphasis on pleasing God than trusting God.
Organized religion
can inadvertently perpetuate this problem. Some churches teach: "do x, y, z and you will get to heaven". This violates the New Testament teaching which says: 'For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: (it is) the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast' (Ephesians 2: 8-9). Reconciling your relationship with God is a matter of trusting that Christ paid for your sins on the cross. We must live in that trust on a daily basis. We are to make Christ our Lord and confess that alliance to others.
5 comments:
No sure how I missed this post, been looking forward to your next post. This was a great post. As a programmer, reading this one I can't help but think about recursive code. Do x,y,& z and you focus to much on the what and not the Who; Believe but never do x,y,& z and you're living a lie. Rev 3:15-16 says: I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. (KJV)
Hi Jack! Great to see you out here!
Rob, Rob, Rob. Always stirring the pot. What part of being bound to live by the law, do people just not understand? In our Sunday School class, they are wanting to change the name from Couples and Company. One of the choices is Truth Seekers. Sorry, but I have a problem with that. One of the things you have to accept is, that if you are seeking the truth, not all of your beliefs and ideals are always going to be correct. You just might be WRONG…..
Personally, I like Paul’s approach to grace, especially Romans 4. So was Abraham’s righteousness before or after he and his family was circumcised? Paul writes “It was not through the keeping of the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promises that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith” He also says that “Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness” I really like that word accounted. It is a bookkeepers term. There is a credit and debit column in bookkeeping. Accounted is like adding to that credit column of righteousness. So if you want to add to your righteousness column, go out and do great works….:) Wrong… Believe the Word of God. “Abraham Believed God”…. “and it was accounted to him as righteousness”
“Circumcision has Value if you observe all points of the law” writes Paul. “But if you break any law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.” (Romans 2) So, I guess we have a choice. To either keep all of God’s laws (which in my opinion includes traffic laws), or accept the free gift of grace for our righteousness.
This is one sinner that is glad he does not have to do x y & z to get to heaven or to gain crowns of righteousness. I guess that is also why they call it the gospel of Jesus. Gospel meaning “Good Message”. It is good news, guys. Christ is our righteousness, not ourselves and all we have to do is??? BELIEVE…..
It is not about what we do outwardly, it is about who we are, and how we believe.
Abraham is know for being the father of faith and if you read Genesis, you wonder how that could be. He was so faithful that he tried to child by other than his wife, and on several occasions told his wife to lie and say that they were brother and sister, because he feared for his life. Doesn't sound like the acts of a christian to me... Guess God thought otherwise, since the New Testament refers to Abraham as the Father of Faith.. go figure....
Hi Randy! Good stuff. I should have known you would have found a way to work the book of Romans into this! : )
Randy, very well put. And what you do with that faith, really shows how much faith you have.
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