grace

Nice!

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 2 Comments

A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world – and might even be more difficult to save. – C.S. Lewis

We live in a world of nice. Nice people, nice houses, nice cars, nice vacations. We tell our children to be nice to other children. We tell our teens to be nice to the relatives. Books on marriage give advice on being nice to one’s spouse. And don’t forget to be nice to your boss.

What does nice mean? For most people it’s pleasant behavior, an agreeable personality, caring and…well…being nice.

Do nice people need to be saved? Most people would say no. They’re nice and nice people go to heaven, don’t they? Isn’t that what the golden rule is about? The Good Samaritan. Now he was nice. How about Jesus who refused to condemn the woman caught in adultery? Wasn’t that nice?

Nice is not a fruit of the Spirit. Nor is it a beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount. God never said, “Be nice as I am nice.” Christ didn’t die on the cross to make people nice.

Nice is cultural. It is meant to help us get along with one another. Nice gives you friends, it even might get you a job, or a girlfriend. But nice will never score any points with God and it will not be your ticket to heaven.

The nice people of the world need to know that they are sinners in need of the saving work of Christ. They need to trade in their niceness for a new life. What they need is holiness and a changed heart. Then and only then will they understand their niceness was filthy rags in the sight of God.

How Do We Live?

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According to 1 Peter 1, our futures are secure. We have an inheritance to end all inheritances. It’s in heaven, reserved for each one of us, and nobody can rob us of it. Not only that, but God guarantees our safe arrival so we can receive it. He preserves us by his power while we live out our lives here one earth. So knowing we are heirs to his kingdom, how do we live? You would think Peter would tell us to get out there and become missionaries, or get busy feeding the poor, or dedicate ourselves to endless hours of prayer or serving the church. He does none of that. Instead he says we are to intentionally live holy lives that reflect the character of God. How do we do that? It means a renewed mind in God’s Word, and a knowledge of Christ and his gospel, and an understanding of our justification and sanctification in Christ. It’s believing and rejoicing in the answer to question 60 from the Heidelberg Catechism (see below). Armed with those truths, we can refuse to conform to the culture of the day, we can struggle against sin and unbelief, and we can rouse ourselves in the Holy Spirit to be conscientious about our lives as Christians.

The Gospel Is Scandalous!

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Q. 60. How are you righteous before God?

A. Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.

–From the Heidelberg Catechism

Enjoy Your Life

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Q: If we’re sure to be bad Christians no matter how hard we try, why should we try at all?  It all seems so pointless.

A: We ought to try hard to love God and serve our neighbor, but we don’t do these things to become better Christians in this world or brighter saints in the world to come.  We do them because God deserves our love and our neighbors need our service.  Unlike self-help programs, the Gospel frees us from ourselves, our failures, our successes, and best of all, from our performance reviews!  Have you ever been on a diet?  Oh, what a life!  You become obsessed with results.  Every morning you wake up worried about what the bathroom scale is going to read. If you’re down a pound or two, you’re giddy; if you’re the same, you’re disappointed; but if your weight is up, you fall into despair and turn to the fridge for comfort.  The Christian life is not a diet, it’s a feast!  What Christ has done for us is so good we don’t think about our enjoyment of it, but the thing itself, and in doing that, we truly enjoy it.

Do your best.  Accept your failures.  Trust the Lord.  Enjoy your life.

Is There Any Hope?

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 2 Comments

Q: Are you saying then that we’re destined to live lives of spiritual defeat with only little respites along the way, and that’s as good as it gets?

A: Not at all!  God’s goal for us is to be like Christ.  At the moment, Jesus is triumphant and glorified at God’s right hand, and God’s guarantee to us is that we will someday share in this magnificent image.  But when Jesus lived where we do, His life was not the glittering thing it is now.  It was marked by weakness, suffering, and by a genuine and daily dependence on His Father in Heaven.  Not even He could rise from the dead until He first died.  The road to Glory runs through the Cross, both for the Lord Himself and all who want to be His disciples.

Q: What about the verses that say we are more than conquerors in Christ, that we can do all things through Him, etc.?

A: We believe the verses, of course, but the success and triumph they promise look a lot like failure and loss: ‘tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, being killed all day long and accounted as sheep for the slaughter’.  In this life God does not give us victory over these things: He gives us victory in and through them.  Just as He did for His Son who learned obedience through the things He suffered.