Sunday, 15 March 2009
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Acting Like God's Grace is Not Enough For Me
Guest post by Sue Densmore
In considering the idea of what it is to live by the Spirit, I have been thinking about grace. It is by grace that the Spirit is available to us, and that we can access His power to live in a way that pleases God. I wonder if we just make it all more complicated than it should be. Paul says in Galatians, "Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature." Like it's a done deal. Like it isn't really possible to mess it up.
I find that the conversation about living by the Spirit often turns to a discussion of getting rid of sin. And no wonder that's the case, with teaching like the aforementioned Galatians passage all over the place in the Bible for us to beat ourselves with. But that very passage seems like the whole grace thing is supposed to be simple. Just don't gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
I find that when I do gratify whatever the desire/temptation of the day is, I find the need to punish myself. I can't imagine that God would actually forgive me that freely and quickly. And so, I find it difficult to accept the forgiveness He gives. But when I don't just accept that forgiveness, I am saying to God that His grace isn't actually good enough, or strong enough, or big enough. So, aren't I really engaging in unbelief when I don't simply accept His forgiveness and move on like it never happened?
Some people say that's "cheap grace," but I don't think so. Cheap grace is when you are confronted by temptation - by your own desires, and instead of calling on the Holy Spirit to help you resist, you figure you'll just go ahead and sin and get forgiveness later.
That's cheap. That is treading mud all over the gift of God.
Real grace is believing that God actually has forgiven you, and just going on. It's not rehashing the issue, and beating yourself up enough, or anything like that.
Real grace forgives, and gives freedom as a result. Because if I am all tied up in trying to punish myself for my sins, I am saying that the punishment Jesus took on the cross wasn't enough, and I am putting myself into a debtors prison from which I could never earn my way out.
I think I'll take the real thing.
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Comments (14)
AMEN! Very true. Fantastic post. Thank you for reminding me.
So, aren't I really engaging in unbelief when I don't simply accept His forgiveness and move on like it never happened?
The answer is no. We cannot move on like it didn't happen because it DID happen.
The negative impulse you are expressing here is the result of a well formed conscience. That is healthy. You understand right and wrong. You have the love of God in your heart so you feel bad when you sin. That is proper and healthy.
The correct response to the bad feelings caused by doing wrong is not to blow off the whole thing and pretend that nothing ever happened. God can blow off our sins and forget about them because he is all merciful. The sinner on the other hand must take proper, Scripturally defined action.
That action as expressed in Scripture is to repent. If one defines doctrine (the doctrine of grace) from Scripture, one must also define one's conclusions (what to do about sin) from Scripture. The human response to personal sin is repentance
But we cannot blow off our sins. We cannot apply God's mercy to ourselves.
@LoBornlite@xanga - I'm not disagreeing with you, but how do you then define repentance? I don't think it's beating ourselves up as the author made a good point about, but neither do I think it's pretending it didn't happen as you stated. But what is repentance?
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God's grace is enough but that doesn't mean it is appropriated automatically and without effort (not to be confused with earning--by definition you never earn grace). You quoted Gal. 5:16: But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. But you need to look at verse 17: For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. This means there is a continuing battle, conflict. One of Satan's tactics is to keep us feeling guilty over sins we've already confessed and repented of. He doesn't want us to have the blessed assurance of forgiveness God has promised if we confess and repent of our sins (see I John 1-2).
I have punished myself for my sin like you. In his book, "Passion" Karl Olsson quoted a Christian psychologist who said: "If we don't accept the atonement of Christ, we repeat it." Exactly. That really began to bring it home to me. There is a difference between knowing the atonement is true in your head and having the the Holy Spirit speak that to your spirit.
I've poured over the Scriptures regarding forgiveness/false guilt, etc., and posted a lot on it, so if anyone would like to message me about this, please feel free to do so.
Hebrews 10:12-23. He who promised IS faithful!
wow, couldn't have said it better. thanks for that post.
this really spoke to me. thank you
wow.. i thought i was the only one who fought a need to punish myself for my own sin, not believing that Christ would dish out His grace to me so freely without me earning it... thanks for being so honest and transparent :)
I think maybe that some are forgetting the quality of forgiveness.I think to experience grace we must find personal forgiveness . We keep wondering about why we did this or that and continue to beat ourselves up.
It is not a quality of forgiveness to forget . That is a catch phrase used by the worldly to keep the truth hidden. We remember our transgressions and work to keep them in check thus learning. Then we confess,then we forgive, then we are blessed by grace.
I was faced with wondering once how I could forgive someone who had done me a very grievous injury, and then in a very long and torturous time I came to realize that forgiveness is not the same as dismissing the consequences of the act.We must forgive ourselves deal with the consequences and then move into grace.Who are we not to forgive . If God can forgive.
God sets no sin as higher than another , but the consequences have higher value.And thus we learn to be more often in grace than in the storm.
This is how it has worked for me.
So much in life is balance. In times of sin, I don't think it's appropriate to beat ourselves to death where we can't recover and go in living God's word, but at the same time, we can't just act in such a way that we might think "Well I feel bad, but never mind, God's grace has me covered and I'm all good now" and move on. It doesn't wory like that either. Infact, both those approaches are immature (in a faith-like way) in God's eyes.
I think what is suppose to happen when we sin, big or small, is that we approach God and repent, and with sincere repentence, we ultimately are open to learning life lessons. We need to learn from our sins, which ultimately teaches us how to then go on living. We cannot escape the consequences of sin, yet we cannot be overcome and become incompetant by sin, but we need to be penitent and humble, and from God's grace and forgiveness strong and faithful enough to learn, move on and spread the good news.
Balance, always.
yeah. God's grace is a grace that not only forgives, but changes us. it's something that as we believe it and walk in faith, it makes makes us into a completely different creation. this we can't do on our own...
Good post
We need to accept that forgiveness but, remember the things we have done so that by His spirit and our own faith we will not go back into sin..
It's complicated.. but it's simple :)
Someone said there is ultimately a balance. Balance is what the Lord wants. Not balance in sin and holiness. Let's just try to stay out of that sin but, also accept His grace and love when we stray from Him.
I love how Paul doesn't agonize over his sin. He recognizes himself as the "chief of sinners"--he contributed to the death of Stephen--but you don't hear him pouring out guilt. Rather, he rejoices in God's grace and gift of new life.
It's good to be sorry over our sins, but I think we need to let go and treat them as God treats them: completely forgiven. I think it honors Him to fully accept (in our minds and hearts) what He has done for us.