In many of my discussions with people about spiritual matters I find myself focused on one of two points and each point seems to be opposite points of a pendulum. I find that many believers either have no assurance of their salvation or at great doubt of God’s love them, or they have a false assurance of God’s love which assurance is show to be false by their way of life.
My struggle is, on one hand, to help those with doubts find assurance in the work of Christ thus gaining freedom from the sense that they must demonstrate their worth of God’s love by their actions and thus feel that God cannot love them for their works are unworthy. more »
I hear it said often that people grow weary of hearing churchmen speak about sin. I understand that people don’t like to think about their difficiencies and areas of weakness. It can make one feel awfully low. It is clear to me that more and more people only want grace from the gospel. We want to know how much love God has for us, how much potential he sees in us, but we don’t want to know what he demands of us and how we utterly fail to please him. We really don’t like it, in our heart of hearts, that God is pleased with us only because he sees in us the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and not our own righteousness, which is as filthy rags.
I am sensitive to this pervasvie feeling of wanting the Church to only provide the perceived positive side of the gospel, after all who wants to bring a person low in their spirit? Indeed, our society reinforces this mentality as it focuses on positive reinforcement techniques for raising children, managing employees and interacting with others. Those who would dare talk to you about your weaknesses as a neighbor, an employee, a son or a daughter are labeled intolerant, unkind and miserly. This is unfortunate.
There are many good reasons for the Church to restrain from its tendency to follow this model, which is so appealing to the those who hold an incomplete view of pastoral care. I want to give you but one today. It comes from the lips of our Lord, Jesus. In speaking about the end times, in which we live, he said, “because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold” Matthew 24:7.
You see, this tendency to concentrate solely on grace and ignore sin, the law and judgment, while it may make us feel better in the moment, is damaging to our souls. As we ignore our sin and its vileness, as we set aside the law and its requirements, as we sideline judgment as something only for the wicked, we are robing our very souls of the fuel that the gospel designs to increase our love for God and one another. In doing so, we do great harm to ourselves all the while thinking that we are helping ourselves. The mind is deceitful.
So, let us consider with sober minds what it means to be a sinner, to be under judgment and therby come to healthy and life giving appreciation of the grace of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Jeremiah 29:11 can be confusing for some. Taken out of context this verse can be confusing. If God has these plans for us, why am I not experiencing them? Am I too sinful? Do I not have enough faith? The context however, shows that this is a prophetic text showing Israel the ultimate plan God has for us. However that ultimate plan does not nullify the disciplining work that God needed to do in their lives to get them to the point of ultimate blessing.
See also 1 Peter 1:3-9
