The closer we get to the easter season the more I am thankful for the amazing grace and love shown to me by my Savior. In our Wednesday Night Bible Study at the Church we have been discussing sin and God’s redemption a lot.
I grew up in the Church and whenever we talked about sin it was usually emphatically told to me “Don’t do it!” “Blake are you sinning? Stop it, because God doesn’t like that!” The idea behind this is ok, it can help people stop doing the wrong thing, but it doesn’t get to the root of the issue. It doesn’t tell me why sin is wrong? Why God doesn’t like it when we sin?
One of my favorite writers A. W. Tozer said, “the most important thing about you is what you believe God is like.” I grew up seeing him as a mean old man who was just waiting for me to mess up and when I did he would punish me. I don’t believe this is the way Jesus wants us to live our lives. He wants to offer us life, hope, peace, and joy. That doesn’t come from this feeling bad about our sinfulness life we have raised up in the Church. We short-change the Gospel when we make it just about not doing the wrong things to avoid God’s punishment.
I heard it explained something like this one time: imagine you came to me and asked me for directions to Chicago. If I responded to you with “don’t go to Texas” that wouldn’t help you out very much. I could say well I saved them a lot of heartache and pain by telling you not to go to Texas, but that really doesn’t help you get to Chicago. This is what we have done for so long in the Church. “Don’t do that (insert sin here), or you will be punished.” Why?
I think in churches today, we have put Jesus’ teachings into a Pharisee-like list of do’s and don’t’s and have completely lost the real meaning and purpose of Jesus’ heart. You see Jesus desires us to not sin, because he wants to show you the greatness of life with Him. It isn’t about just not doing the bad thing, but doing the good thing because it makes more sense. The entire story of Scripture is about God creating a perfect world, then man sins, and God desiring to restore it to perfection again. We desire, like Jesus, a world where sin doesn’t even exist anymore. P.S. this day comes: see Revelation 21 and 22. The life change because of the gospel is doing the good things because we see the world like Jesus sees the world. We are so close to Him that we love like Him.
Jesus invites us to learn to be like Him, to be close to Him. He lived the life we should live, and He died the death we should die. Did you ever notice that in every “no” teaching of Jesus there is an invitation to live a bigger, better, fuller life? Every time there is judgment or destruction in Scripture there is also salvation. God’s heart is always one of forgiveness before condemnation.
So as we get closer to Easter, look to Jesus. Point your life in His direction. Not just because of the consequences for what happens if we don’t, but because of the goodness that comes when we do.
~Blake
Complete in Christ 