Let me start this blog out with a thought:
"The Church is a community of persons...it exists to make the entire process of self-justification irrelevant". Not an exact quote, but the idea comes from a book I'm reading on the Desert Fathers. The point is scriptural. Paul said it this way.
2 Corinthians 5:12-21 (NIV)
12 We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.
13 If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
14 For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.
15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
God's truth and his mercy have appeared to us in concrete ways - the Person of Jesus. In His death and resurrection a transformation has occurred. Death is not the final end, and Sin will not rule over creation.
THEREFORE, we do not need to labor anxiously to save ourselves, or to put ourselves right with God.
The Church is a community of Persons who exist to make the entire process of self-justification irrelevant.
Paul says we do not have to compare, nor compete; but instead know that Christ's love compels us to live for something other than ourselves (individualism)...because we are not merely individuals, but persons, people who have made a new creation, and we are made reconciled already.
The Church is a community of Persons who exist to make the entire process of self-justification irrelevant.
NOW, it does not mean I have confidence in myself. I have no confidence in my own nature. I am convinced that there is a certain fragile quality to my own will and the choices I make are not typically Godly...in fact they can be quite selfish. What is hard for us to grasp at times is how clearly in repentance we also know with certainty that we do not need to make up our debt with God. That debt has been paid in Christ on the cross, and the resurrection is the "paid in full" stamp on our indebtedness. Tomorrow that debt will be paid again, and the day after that.
So, what is our posture in terms of living, personal choices?
I live with a sense of effort in growing in the grace that I've received. I do not expend the effort to gain salvation, but rather I expend the effort because I have received that mercy and grace in salvation.
I have learned - and I might add, in Community - that the nature of Christ Jesus' mercy does not leave me stuck in my sin, trying to be released through my own efforts, but rather that as a person, a redeemed person, God has chosen me and therefore I can chose him. I am not a finished saint, but a person who is being transformed by the renewing of the mind, and the presentation of the will (choices) to him day by day.
Peace
"The Church is a community of persons...it exists to make the entire process of self-justification irrelevant". Not an exact quote, but the idea comes from a book I'm reading on the Desert Fathers. The point is scriptural. Paul said it this way.
2 Corinthians 5:12-21 (NIV)
12 We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.
13 If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
14 For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.
15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
God's truth and his mercy have appeared to us in concrete ways - the Person of Jesus. In His death and resurrection a transformation has occurred. Death is not the final end, and Sin will not rule over creation.
THEREFORE, we do not need to labor anxiously to save ourselves, or to put ourselves right with God.
The Church is a community of Persons who exist to make the entire process of self-justification irrelevant.
Paul says we do not have to compare, nor compete; but instead know that Christ's love compels us to live for something other than ourselves (individualism)...because we are not merely individuals, but persons, people who have made a new creation, and we are made reconciled already.
The Church is a community of Persons who exist to make the entire process of self-justification irrelevant.
NOW, it does not mean I have confidence in myself. I have no confidence in my own nature. I am convinced that there is a certain fragile quality to my own will and the choices I make are not typically Godly...in fact they can be quite selfish. What is hard for us to grasp at times is how clearly in repentance we also know with certainty that we do not need to make up our debt with God. That debt has been paid in Christ on the cross, and the resurrection is the "paid in full" stamp on our indebtedness. Tomorrow that debt will be paid again, and the day after that.
So, what is our posture in terms of living, personal choices?
I live with a sense of effort in growing in the grace that I've received. I do not expend the effort to gain salvation, but rather I expend the effort because I have received that mercy and grace in salvation.
I have learned - and I might add, in Community - that the nature of Christ Jesus' mercy does not leave me stuck in my sin, trying to be released through my own efforts, but rather that as a person, a redeemed person, God has chosen me and therefore I can chose him. I am not a finished saint, but a person who is being transformed by the renewing of the mind, and the presentation of the will (choices) to him day by day.
Peace
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