Thankful for His Grace

What is God's response when we sin? What is his attitude towards us? Is God angry at us?

I've written about my legalistic tendencies before, but to reiterate, I have a very difficult time accepting grace. To me, and to many people, it seems as if a perfect God would not tolerate any sinfulness on our part, and that immediate repentance and begging and pleading is required to appease his wrath that occurs because of our sin.

Yet is that really how God views us? Romans 8 says "nothing will be able separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus." Nothing. Nothing in the future or in the past. Just prior to that verse, Paul writes that it is God who sent his only son, Jesus, to die for us, which means that God would not turn around and then condemn us. Jesus has already stood in our place to receive our punishment. Since we are justified by God through Jesus, Jesus cannot and will not condemn us either. Romans 8:34 says that Jesus died and rose again, and is now sitting at God's right hand interceding or pleading for us. That means that he is praying for us continually.

Why would Jesus pray for us? To paraphrase theologian Bryan Chapell, Jesus is pleading for us even today because we still sin even today. Why yes, Christians still sin, but, like I wrote earlier, sin in a Christian's life eventually leads him or her closer to God. Where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. God's grace is overflowing for us because he has already redeemed us. God doesn't change his mind when it comes to grace.

Yet, here is my dilemma. If God will keep forgiving me, do I have to stop sinning? What if sin feels good or is a natural response? Paul asked this same question in Romans 5:20-6:2:

....But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?

Chapter six goes on to say that we are no longer slaves to sin. As Christians, we have been redeemed. Grace reigns in us through righteousness for eternal life. Yet in God, we have the full power to tell Satan to get out of our way. We can say "No." We are no longer slaves to sin.

Another thing to consider is that sin disrupts our relationship with God. I would argue that it doesn't change how God sees and feels about us (remember, he doesn't change his mind), but it changes how we feel about God. I think the Holy Spirit convicts us, but I don't think God is stomping around like an angry Zeus. Ever done something behind someone's back that you should not have done, and then ignored them because you felt guilty about it? That is what happens when Christians sin. We feel bad about it and there is a disruption in our relationship with God. Yes, sin is sin, and yes, it is wrong. However, I think too many Christians forget that Jesus has truly already died for our sins.

I described this phenomenon of sin actually drawing us closer to God in an earlier post:

When we sin now, as believers, we can come to God and kneel before him and confess, "God, I'm sorry for my sin. I repent." And you know what? God says, "What sin? I don't know what you're talking about. Come up here and sit on my lap."

God's forgiveness does not give us a license to sin. In fact, it should make us want to sin less. Wow, God really loves me. I'm so grateful for that and I don't want to take advantage of it. John 14:15 says, "If you love me, obey my commandments." When we love God, we are more likely to not want to sin against him. When we know that God loves us, we are more likely to come to him in repentance, not terrified fear, after sinning.

So, how do we know that God really loves us? Open your Bible! It's full of God's love. Jason Zahn says that when dealing with repetitive sins, we know we are doing the right thing if we are making progress towards sanctification. It may be hard to see for a while, but when we see that we are sinning less, that we are pursuing Bible study, prayer, worship, and community, and that, as Zahn says, we are "grow[ing] in understanding [of our] Savior," we know that God continues to forgive. Not only does he continue to forgive, but he continues to love.

Remember, you don't have to have all your crap together to approach God. Not the first time you approach him or the 47th time. Or the 8,739th time. Because in reality, the Christian life is not actually about us. My sanctification is not the end all be all of Christ's death and resurrection. Fortunately, Christ came and died so all the nations would be saved through him. Really, this life is about God and his ultimate cosmic plan. I believe his plan includes my growth and maturation and sanctification as a follower of Him. But I also believe there's more to it than that.

This November, I am challenging myself to be thankful for his grace. I have often been very cynical of it. I have thought things like, "Why on earth would God still love someone like me?" And, "Since I don't understand why God would forgive me, I'm not going to accept it." What a horrible way to treat the death of my Savior! He died so that I might live, and I refuse to live. Ridiculous.

I'm remembering, even today, that in Him, I am literally a new creation. When he says that the old has gone, he is not saying that it is my duty to remove everything bad from my life. That is what I am aiming for, but He is doing it in me and through me. It is a slow process, but all good things are slow processes.

Two years ago, I never would have imagined that when God told me he was going to do great and wonderful things in me and through me before there was a guy in my life, he meant all that has happened since then. I mean, I've had some guy troubles, some friendship troubles, I've begun counseling, I've faced the crap that I stuffed for many years... I went to Asia and I'm planning to go back (wow!), I felt my calling to teaching solidified... so much has happened. So much has changed. Finally, I'm out of the "funk" that haunted me for several weeks earlier this semester. I'm starting to see God and Christianity in a new light. I'm starting to see his forgiveness as beautiful and merciful, not as unwanted as I did before. I'm (very slowly) starting to see marriage as viable, possible, and not completely terrifying.

Does all of this mean that God's going to plop Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome right in front of me tomorrow? I'd be beyond surprised if he did. It does mean that God is still doing those great and wonderful things. He hasn't given up on me and He is still working in my life.

What a beautiful, gracious, amazing, and mighty God we serve. Oh, how he loves!

What I'm Listening To:

"Free" - Switchfoot

"Only Grace" - Matthew West

"Desert Soul" - Rend Collective Experiment

"This Love is Free" - Hyland

A "Real" Missionary: How We're Always on Assignment

A lot of people think that missions is giving up of luxuries in Jesus's name. Like "I'm not a real missionary unless I go to the farthest corner of the earth and have no running water and run an undercover house church."

But that is not true. Serving the Lord in missions is an act of giving up your selfcenteredness for His glory so that He may use you to love on and minister to the people He desires to draw to Himself. Simply, it's not always giving up world-defined "luxuries." It's giving up anything which draws your attention back to yourself. Anything that keeps you from being selfless. Anything that keeps you from listening to the Spirit as he directs your steps. Anything that keeps you from building relationships with the people who need to hear of His saving grace and forgiveness.

If you can selflessly serve the Lord in a one room shack in the middle of India to poverty-stricken Hindus, you are doing missions. If you can selflessly serve the Lord in a tiny Hong Kong apartment in the heart of a big city among unreached businessmen, you are doing missions. If you can selflessly serve the Lord in a four bedroom house near the mountains of the Carolinas among "situational" and "nominal" Christians, you are doing missions.

Missions is not always the act of being luxury-less, it is the act of being selfless. Sometimes the two are the same thing. Sometimes God calls us to be his hands and feet to people who literally have nothing and are starving and naked and thirsty. And sometimes he calls us to be his hands and feet to people who seemingly have everything, but who in reality are as broken and needy as those who have nothing.

The organization I served with this summer primarily ministers to the educated of Asia. These people have food, they have shelter, but they are hungry for hope.

Yes, there is a dire need for people like us to meet the physical needs of the poor around the world. Even Jesus did that. He healed the lepers and fed the hungry before he told them the Good News. As a teacher, I like to say that my students won't care how much I know until they know how much I care. It's the same thing with the Good News. People won't care what you know (Jesus cares) until they know that you care. I'm not saying there isn't a call for physical needs (like hunger, thirst, illness, and nakedness) to be met. I would like to argue that there is more. There is also a call for emotional and mental needs to be met. Help meet the first need (whichever one God has equipped you to meet) and people will be open to hearing about how God can meet their spiritual need.

 Don't ever think that if your calling doesn't take you out of the country or to the poorest of the poor that you somehow aren't good enough. Because sometimes the orphans of the world are AIDS-infected African children. And sometimes they are black-haired, light-brown-skinned teenagers with almond-shaped-eyes whose biological parents have never told them that they love them.

And unless we learn to love the people around us in situations that don't actually call us to give up "big" or comfortable things, how can we ever love the people around us in the situations that do?

A lot of people think that missions is simply showing the Jesus film and planting a church. Maybe digging a fresh water well, too. Those things are great and we need them. But I think that "missions" can be more accurately defined as a lifestyle, not a profession. And way more than a summer trip.

We can choose professions like pastor, teacher, translator, counselor, and even auto mechanic, and can use those jobs as part of our missional lifestyle. That's one problem I have with majoring in Cross-Cultural Studies, like many people at my college do. Because what are you going to do with that? Why not get additional training? Major in Counseling and minor in CCS, so you then have a practical skill. Not only can that grant you entrance into a creative-access country, but it is actually a marketable profession you can do and get paid for and do missions through. Or major in Cross-Cultural Adult Education, because education is a great tool for relationship building which can lead to some awesome conversations.

Don't think that only people with a cross-cultural or inter-cultural studies degree can serve as a missionary. Missions is a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle whether you are overseas or in your home country. It's an assignment to make known the name of Christ wherever you are.

Interestingly, you never retire from mission work. We are always on an assignment, which proves that missions isn't something that only happens in other countries. 2 Peter chapter 3 says, "Always be ready to explain [your Christian hope]," not just when you sign up to go on a mission trip. I want to leave you with this quote from Father Sullivan...

We say the missionary is coming ‘home’. Perhaps that is the problem, for in fact, the missionary is not coming home. For it is as difficult to return and begin as it was to begin when you first went. The person has changed, the culture has changed, and the politics of the country has changed. So let’s reconceptualise it: we are not coming home, we are going on a new assignment. We have made that transition once, let’s build on a previous experience and feel we are going on a new commitment. This takes a lot of work.

What I'm Listening To:

"Send Us to the Nations" - Jarod Espy / Arisen

"All the Poor and Powerless" - All Sons and Daughters
"I Refuse" - Josh Wilson

Temple Tuesday

Yesterday was the midpoint in the semester, which means I am halfway through my first semester of college. Where on God's green earth did the time go? Seems like, last week, I was a tenth grader sitting at a round table in Williams Chapel filling out an application for college. And, here I am, a freshman in college. Wow.

Just wanted to remind you that God has plans for you! He is taking you somewhere, not only for your good, but for a grand purpose for this world and his creation.

Don't get so focused on the little things in life that you neglect the two most important things...

Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself."

(Matthew 22:37-38)

Unending love

It hit me in church this morning - God doesn't change. He had no beginning, he has no end. His love never wavers. His faithfulness never fails.

Despite leaving high school, leaving my home of 7 and a half years, leaving my hometown... God doesn't change. And he's still here. And his sacrifice doesn't loose it's significance because I'm not in my comfortable little bubble. In fact, it will probably gain more significance in my eyes.

Attending the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York last week on my senior trip really opened my eyes to the fact that every true Christian serves the same God.

The Maker of Adam, the Lord of Abraham, the King of David, on into the Savior of New Yorkers, the Redeemer of Mexicans, the Helper of Middle Easterners... This is my God. This is our God. Christianity surpasses every race and geographical boundary.

God's love is unending and unchanging, no matter where, what, or who I am.