GRACE BLOGS COLLECTION
Most of us have been taught that God punishes us when we sin. I believed that every bad thing that happened to me was because he was punishing me for something I did. I just couldn’t believe that God was ever proud of me because all I could ever see was the wrong things I was doing.
The post I Am Becoming Who I Am! appeared first on MichaelWilson.org.
The guy in the t-shirt promoting abortion, the sexual revolution, social victimization, and open borders said that I was a misogynist, legalist, and racial bigot because I did not agree with his t-shirt. Am I?
Honestly, I felt the arrow. Maybe I harbor hidden bias. Perhaps I don't love the world as Jesus does. Then I remembered some verses from the apostle John that give perspective.
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. -- 1 John 3:18-19 (ESV)
Our own hearts are not infallible in evaluating our standing in righteousness. God is greater than our hearts. He knows everything. His verdict is the one that matters. (Now, there is a t-shirt for Christians: God's verdict matters.)
What does it mean to love the world? Well, we know God does. What does his love look like?
First, he didn't allow the world to define love or what was needed. He looked beyond the deceptive thoughts of people bound in sin, and blind to true beauty, and gave the only gift that would free us and restore the glory of humans. He gave to meet the needs we had misidentified, so we could enjoy a greater liberty than we could imagine.
In order to prove my love, do I have to agree with everyone? It would be anything but authentic love to promote what I believe is destructive.
Second, he gave himself at great cost. It wasn't just a theory he was promoting. He didn't give a new ideology or fresh idea on how to structure society. He came into our dilemma and accepted the eternal consequences of our condition so that we could enter his condition as righteous before God.
Third, he loved us as people. Each of us has a unique story of need, though we share a common alienation from God because of sin. Jesus doesn't deal with us as a subset of society classified by our ethnicity, sex, or social standing. He loves persons!
Someone asked me if my biblical worldview prevented my loving the LGBTQ community. Instead, it compels me to love the people who may identify or be classified by those letters.
I know and love many people who have been classified in this subset -- and I am eager and willing to love many more. I am just not sure what loving a subset of society means. In order to prove my love, do I have to agree with the particular agenda of that subset? It would be anything but authentic love to promote what I believe is destructive. If Jesus had loved like that, he would have abandoned us to our own wishes, consigning us to the misery of self-delusion forever. I can respect their right to believe without affirming their belief to be right.
Help us champion truth, freedom, limited government and human dignity. Support The Stream >>
Jesus' love was expressed in that while we were yet bound in deception and ignorant of our desperate condition, he did what was necessary to set us free. (See Romans 5:8.) Love is costly, and it expresses itself in actions. It cares more for the condition of another than for our own comfort and ease. (See 1 Corinthians 13.)
If I listen to the angry voices telling me who I am, I will either shrink from being real, or I will strike back and lose my sense of peace. Either way, I will be weak and cowardly. Confidence comes from knowing God's verdict and accepting it as final. That frees me to see any person as created in the image of God, valuable and worth loving. It also releases me to hear God, my Father when he lovingly tells me that I have hidden bias he wants to eliminate. I like being loved like that, and I want that for everyone.
Romans 8:28 has become a hallmark verse for so many Christians. Paul tells the Christians at Rome, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.” What an amazing promise! God will work everything to my good.
The post Does God Cause All Things to Turn Out For Your Good? appeared first on MichaelWilson.org.
Driving over bridges had never been one of my favorite things to do, but four years ago while taking a road trip vacation with my family to beautiful Prince Edward Island, Canada we had to drive over a very long bridge – 8 miles long to be exact (pictured above). Special note: There are many […]
The post Becoming Fearless appeared first on Sandra McCollom.
Hi Sandra, My name is Debbie and I live in Australia. I have been reading your book and I absolutely love it! I have some questions that I would like to ask you about and hoping that you may be able to answer. My Answer: Hi Debbie! So happy you are loving my book. I […]
The post Questions & Answers: Grace-Based Relationship Advice appeared first on Sandra McCollom.
I saw a social media meme recently that reflects a common error in how we relate to God. It is a photograph of a young man standing with an uplifting head as if looking to the heavens. The caption is, "The Lord is moved by the way you live. He is moved by your hunger for him and by your lifestyle choices."
It is a trap! It is wrong-headed according to the gospel proclaimed in the New Testament. The perspective is one of a distant god waiting for us to make the right decisions before he moves in our direction. It leads to a belief in the transactional gospel of contemporary American religion.
In this religion, God is always the responder. We initiate the transactions by what we offer. We purchase certain blessings by something we give in exchange. If we want God to move in our behalf, we must find the key ingredient that moves him for the particular blessing we desire. It spurs us to value the discovery of the key principle above the relationship we have in Christ. The good news is often just another announcement of a new coin we can put into the vending machine (sorry for such an outdated metaphor).
He ascended to the right hand of God not by popular vote, but by the sovereign grace of the Father.
Contrasting such a perspective with the one of the New Testament, we find God always initiating the moves. He came looking for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden while they were hiding. He found Noah and made him a promise. He did the same with Abraham. He heard the cry of Abraham's descendants in Egypt and acted to deliver them. He fed them, watered them and fought for them in the wilderness.
They were always moving away from him, and he pursued them with his persistent love. If God had waited for Israel to move toward him, they would never have been in covenant with him. He chose David as their king. He gave them prophets to instruct and warn. He moved Cyrus to release them from captivity.
In the fullness of time, he caused John the Baptist to be born as the forerunner of the Christ. He appeared to Mary while she was minding her own business. Jesus came to his frightened disciples in the storm. They were too paralyzed by fear to move toward God. He paid the unpayable debt without any contribution from us. He was raised from the dead with no assistance from the faithful. He ascended to the right hand of God not by popular vote, but by the sovereign grace of the Father. He sent the Spirit without any request from the struggling disciples.
He still comes to us when we can't go to him. Even when our lifestyle choices have left us in complicated confusion, he appears and assumes responsibility for the chaos.
Help us champion truth, freedom, limited government and human dignity. Support The Stream >>
We don't negotiate for blessings. The negotiations are closed. God the Father promised blessings to obedient humans. Jesus the Son is the obedient human. We get any and all blessings based on our relationship with him. In Christ, we are blessed and can experience the benefits of the inaugurated new creation as we focus on what he has done. The more we look at the beauty of the Savior, the more our mouths water for him; the hungrier our hearts become for deeper knowledge of him.
We don't move God. He has moved in our direction in Christ and continues to move toward us to open our eyes to the treasures in the Son. Stay out of the trap.
I love watching birds! We have a bird feeder in our front yard right in front of our porch swing and I love to sit on our swing, listen to worship music and watch the birds. Whenever I take the time to notice birds I’m always reminded of how joyful and care free they are and […]
The post Baby Birds, Recently Hatched! appeared first on Sandra McCollom.
I was so angry at myself. I was standing in the middle of a party where family and friends had gathered to celebrate my birthday, when someone broke into my thoughts, "Smile, we are having a good time." Suddenly I realized that I was thinking about tomorrow's potential for bad news. A medical test results would come back. The possibilities flashed through my mind at the speed of light. Malignant. Funeral. Finances. Care for my wife. Kid's response to my death...
Maybe you can relate. You lose sight of a three-year-old at the zoo for a panicky two minutes. A teenager is late coming home. A letter in the mailbox from the IRS... It is amazing how quickly our imaginations can create the worst possible scenarios. We seem to be constantly waiting for the next batch of bad news. That’s common to humanity, since our forebears listened to the lying accuser in the original garden. But I have some good news today. I saw it while meditating on Psalm 112. It’s worthwhile to stop and read that.
“They will not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.” -- Psalm 112:7
I will summarize. There are three actors in the picture. God is gracious, faithful and caring. The believer is designed for joy and victory over the accuser. The enemy is trying to steal the joy. It is helpful to know the background. God created us to be image-bearers. We are to reflect his goodness to all his creation. He has done everything necessary for us to be joyful recipients of his grace, full of thanksgiving and generosity.
The Psalmist gives a list of blessings God has reserved for those who fear the Lord and delight in obeying his commands. It includes their children, their lasting wealth, their guidance, their assurance of victory over evil, their legacy, their honor, and “they will not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.” (vs. 7) Oh, and “the wicked will see this and be infuriated. They will grind their teeth in anger; they will slink away, their hopes thwarted.” (vs. 10 NLT)
Nothing can separate us from God’s love -- not even the tragedies of this fallen world.
Why do we expect bad news? Intrinsically we know we deserve it. We have sinned and deserve to be punished. Even though as believers, we know that Jesus took our penalty, we revert to familiar feelings when the enemy's thought is shot like a poison arrow into our minds. The accuser uses the law to condemn us, and when we are not conscious of the law being fulfilled in Jesus, we fall victims to his thievery. But the ultimate bad news was taken by Jesus -- so that we could hear the good news. We know that since God is love, his every act is an expression of love. He earnestly desires us to live in the joy of his continual care. If he is with us and his intent is our good, then we can rejoice.
Since Jesus fulfilled all conditions for being blessed, we can faithfully rest in his righteousness. We fear God because his love is incomprehensible, and his grace is endless. We delight in obeying his words because they are life to us. They alone feed our hungry souls. We have lost our suspicion of him and found him to be faithful in every circumstance. Nothing can separate us from his love -- not even the tragedies of this fallen world.
When the other shoe falls, it will be another expression of his love. He cares for his own and his presence makes every circumstance a piece of heaven. The enemy hates it and the world is amazed at such joy.