Living Out of God's Grace

The stranger danger alert system is alive and well.  I can see it in my own heart.  If I listen to my life I often find myself making snap judgments that excuse me from having to extend friendship to others.  Let's be honest, people who hold different opinions or who come from different traditions often frighten us.  So we stay away.  

But sometimes it's even a little worse.  Many people often have an attitude about their convictions--I'm right and everyone else is wrong; the world would be a better place if  others were more like me.  It's easy to gravitate toward this type of thinking; it feels so good.  

Yet we need to be reminded of its inherent dangers.  For starters, it's awfully hard to be right (assuming you're right, which you might not be) and still be nice.  Or to put it another way, our sense of being right often produces arrogance.  Then we're in danger of being as pure as angels and as arrogant as demons, looking down upon others who don't measure up to our standards.  It's one of the greatest temptations Christians face.  Through grace they find themselves enjoying a new quality of life, but then they forget it's grace and start to believe it's their own works that brought them this far.  Love and grace are then replaced with moralism. We've forsaken many vices only to be filled with the one that keeps us from God and others--pride!   

This pride makes a community sick.  It keeps us in our holy huddle, as we refuse to extend hospitality to those who are different.  To counterbalance this tendency, we must learn to live out of God's grace.  God's grace is being extended to all people, even to people we might not be fond of.  Now rest assured, I'm not suggesting we throw truth out the window.  What I am suggesting is that the foundation of our life and the foundation of our morality is always grace.  It's in allowing people to encounter love that lives are transformed for the better.  Furthermore, we have been saved by grace and we live by grace and so we're called to that extend grace to others.  A failure to do so only reveals a disconnect.  

Let's be fanatical followers of Jesus.  Let's live by and through the love that saved us.  

Peace! 

 

Fanatical Followers

 It's frequently suggested that most of the world's problems stem from fanaticism.  Is it true?  Is the world coming apart at the seems because there's too much religious fanaticism?  

The answer I would give is no.  Fanaticism isn't the problem; it's the object of your fanaticism that creates the problem.  As I stated in my sermon, Have you ever met an Amish terrorist?  Of course not.  Yet the Amish are some of the most fanatical people in the world; they're just fanatical about following Jesus, specifically, letting Christ's love and grace shape the way they relate to others.  

With that in mind, I call everyone to be a fanatical follower of Jesus.  Listen carefully to that sentence.  I don't want you to be fanatical about a principle, or a doctrine, or an agenda, or a particular church, or a particular way of worship.  These little "issues" that each person holds dear in his or her heart are annoying at best and divisive at worst.  All of these things are necessary, but they are necessary for only one purpose--helping us learn to live and love like Jesus lived and love.  Giving yourself to love, to be loved and to love, is the best thing you can do with your life.  Anything less than that is not worth our devotion.  

Again, please think about what I'm saying.  I'm saying, let's allow Christ to inhabit us--his love and grace.  Is there any better way to live?  I can't think of one.  I'm ready to fanatically follow this one who has fanatically followed me.   

May God raise up an army of grace-filled, love inspired Christians.  

  

Peace.