Tuesday, 16 June 2009

• Currently Redeeming Love By Francine Rivers see related

  L is for Law, G is for Grace

  "God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." - Romans 5:20-21 (NLT)

  Imagine you're a whooly sheep. A very intelligent sheep, too. You have this ENTIRE planet on which to run around, eat all kinds of delicious grass (all you vegans would count that Heaven already, yeah?), and baa till the cows come home. (And you hope ethey never do because then they'd eat all your grass!!! ...</silly joke>)

  This entire world just for you and your fellow sheep...and that really hot lady sheep just over yonder, with her whool looking so silky and pearly white. (Rawr, baby!) It's a good day to be a four-legged, whooly, baa-ing mammal. It's a good LIFE!

  But early on, the shepherd warns you to stay away from one particular patch of grass. It has its purpose, but to eat of it would mean you're going to have leathal food poisoning. He even says specifically which patch of grass. "Don't eat of the grass of the Knowledge of Good and Evil...or you will surely die." And the shepherd points out just what kind of grass it is, its color, and everything. You really cannot miss it. (As if its odd, purple hue didn't scream "DANGER, Will Robinson! DANGER! .....baaaa!" I bet you didn't know there were sheep in space, did ya?)

  So here we have it. Total freedom. An entire world on which to graze. But what happens if the day came that we sheep up and eat that forbidden grass? Well, for one you're going to have nothing short of a massive tummy ache...one that not even Tums and Pepto Bismal can cure. When the shepherd said lethal, he meant it.

  So serious is that poison grass, that it begins to affect us far beyond a bad tummy ache. It affects our body and our very way of thinking. We can't make heads or tails of a barn door from a tractor. So the shepherd up and sets up a sturdy white fence with no gate to go in or out through around every little or big patch of poison grass. This is off limits. Don't touch it. Don't stick your tongue through the slats. Don't toss someone over with a rope to pull them back out. The message could not be any clearer. DO NOT EAT THE PUPLE POISON GRASS!

  Oye...but now we're mindless, stupid sheep. Aimless lambs. We have found every way to disobey God's laws and every excuse to make it "logical" and worthy of exception as to why we shouldn't get punished. But see, all that does is prove that we have missed an important principle about God's laws from the beginning.

  Jump back to Genesis when God informed Adam about the one rule of the Garden...nay, the entire universe. "You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die" - Genesis 2:16-17 (NLT). That was it. There was no broken fellowship with God at this time, which means there was no sin and no death anywhere in the world. Everything was good and perfect.

  But after Adam and Eve sinned, thus began the progressive worsening of the sins of the human race. It got so bad that God saw fit to flood the entire world, save but Noah and his faithful family.

  The purpose of God's laws were meant to
  1) prevent harm/destruction/death (Genesis 2:17).
  2) be a marker for what was off limits and outside of God's perfect design for us (Romans 7:7-12).
  3) ...if there are any other reasons, I specifically cannot think of them at the moment...

  So now we have rampant sinfulness going on. God's original design for the world is crumbling under the effects of sin. Sin being the total separation from God, both in personal relationship and in our conduct according to His design. So ignorant are we of God's original design that He must set up boundaries in order that we might not sin further. But as Romans 7 says, "So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me. But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good" - Romans 7:10-12 (NLT). Now if God's laws are supposed to bring life, why is it that we're not living?! Because of sin. Sin is that inherant nature that every human carries deep in the core of their being. Even a child who has the most loving and wise of parents, who set the most perfect example possible of what is good and right, will have moments where they must deal with a disobedient child. Our inclination is to do things our own way. We want what we want and we want it now and we even refuse to try to understand why we can't get it now...let alone why it's not good for us or whatever the deal. We are selfish and we do not want any authority over us telling us what to do.

  Wouldn't it be nice to have sex as we pleased? No consequences? (Well, no bad consequences.) Wouldn't it be nice to eat candy and cake without threat of malnutrition, tummy ache or weight gain? How awesome would it be to go to the bank, walk into the vault, and walk out like you were grabbing a shirt out of your closet? No one even glances your way with a mere thought of your actions. Believe it or not, it was very nearly like that before sin. Adam and Eve could have sex with each other as long as they cared to. They could eat as they pleased from any tree (save but one). And the whole entire world was theirs!!! Imagine that! The only consequences (good ones) were that of a close bond and relationship with your best friend and lover (in this case, also your spouse). A happy tummy and a healthy body (God's a really good cook). And more wonder and mystery to be discovered than we could imagine as they explored the Garden (imagine exploring the whole world without worry or care...brand, spankin' new). But because sin, by nature, is a perversion of what should be, we now must endure the weight of the law.

  Many of us think the law is a hinderance.
  I don't think you'd think so dismally of the law when someone T-bones you after running a red light.

  The law is meant to set us on a protective path. Imagine a narrow road - "Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets. You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it" - Matthew 7:12-14 (NLT) - and on each side of that road is a sturdy fence. On either side is the broadside of a high clif...so far down that you don't even want to think what might be at the bottom, the drop alone is enough to send chills up your spine and twitches back down. You wouldn't dare step near those railings, would you?  One wrong move and that's it. You're gone. Even if someone was quick enough to catch your hand and pull you back up, the fact remains that you went over the edge. Your perfect walk along the path has been tarnished. And upon reaching the end of the path reads a sign, "Only those who have not crossed either side of the path may pass this point."

  You're out of luck.

  Because we have all stepped over that edge. Whether we have dangled the tip of our finger just past the edge or sent ourselves flying without so much as two feathers to shake, we've all gone past that do not pass zone. God wasn't joking when He said you would surely die. Passing the limit is passing the limit.

  So now we have a set of laws that, while intended to be our safety net, have become instead our noose. HA! Time for old school Sunday School verse! Yup, John 3:16...and a bit more.

  "For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

  “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants" - John 3:16-21 (NLT).

  I hope you read all of that. Just like here in pre-Heaven/Hell days, when we break a law - like running a red light - there will be a judgment. The law cannot save you! It is only a marker. A sign that says, "DANGER, Will Robinson! DANGER! ...there is purple poison grass beyond this point!" (And for now, we'll just pretend everyone's name is "Will Robinson".) Why would we put laws up for no reason? Is "danger" simply an attempt to spoil our fun? Hardly! If God gave the entire planet to Adam and Eve (and their children...) and said, "You may freely eat of any tree...", doesn't it make sense that God wanted us to enjoy what He created? All throughout the Bible God is telling us, "Don't do this because I don't want you to die, I want to be close to you, and I want you to see how much I love you!" It's our own wicked choices that even makes it difficult to see that there IS a God!

  So even though the law is now our "enemy" (note the use of quotation marks), by which we will surely see our punishment, God wasn't content to let that be the way of things. Though there was a cause-effect in action - sin --> death - God stepped in and said, "NO! This is not the end of the story. This is NOT why I created the universe. This is NOT what I intended for my beloved children."

  We humans - we stupid, selfish, blind, ignorant sheep - have eaten the purple poison grass and sentenced ourselves to eternal tummy aches, bad whool (hair) days...and Hell. But as Jesus said, "everyone who believes in [Me] will...have eternal life" (italics mine). We did nothing to earn this.

  Did you hear me? I'm not trying to rub your face in your past mistakes (I'd have to rub my face in my own past, too). But this is big - and GOOD - news! We did nothing to earn what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying that if you believe in Him, and ultimately His sacrifice - that He gave up His life to die for us, in our place, for a punishment we deserve - you will not die. You will not suffer in Hell. Your tummy aches will be gone and your whool will shine like gold...or pearls if you like pearls. And you baa up and down without a worry. Freedom. The way it was meant to be. No limits. No danger. LIFE.

  When we sinned against God - when we turned away from Him - we lost sight of what was good and right. So, naturally, we did what was wrong. Have you ever tried walking through a room (aka life) without a clear picture of what the room looks like or a light to at least see where you're standing? It's because we left our flashlight behind. We smashed all the lightbulbs (leaving broken glass on the floor and then wonder why we've got bloody feet). We've even gone as far as to cut the power lines to the house. Common sense tells us that that's just ludicrous! But that's what we've done. God, the light of the world, has been snuffed out in our hearts. We can't make sense of which way to go or why we keep bumping into walls and tripping up and down the stairs. We hear noises and know that something isn't right (that loud crash sounded like plates but you'll be hard pressed to figure out where all the pieces are before you find yourself in pain again).

  God set up the law to give us a map of life. To help us begin to understand where the dangers were. And in time, we would begin to see that His aim was to show where all the beauty was that He had created for us. But the law demanded perfection. Something we could never attain on our own. Why? Because one sin is all it took. "Good enough" has no standard to be measured against. "Be holy, as I am holy," says the Lord. Be perfect. God new we could not be that. So Jesus, the one true God and the only perfect Human to ever live, stepped in at the head of the line of judgment. While we awaited our moment of sentencing...before the judge's mallet was even lifted to come pounding down...Jesus went to the cross and died for us. So that when the day comes for all who have lived, are living, and will live stand before God, we might have a chance to accept His grace. His forgiveness.

  Jesus died for every single sin. He was perfect. He made no mistakes. No sin that separated Him from a relationship with the Heavenly Father. So a trade was made. Jesus gave us His righteousness - His perfect standing before God - in exchange for our sins and upcoming damnation to Hell.

  Picture that...
  Jesus traded HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS...

  ...for HELL.

  Jesus traded HIS UNWAIVERING FAVOR WITH GOD...

  ...for a chance to send US to HEAVEN.

  But it will only make a difference for us if we accept Jesus' sacrifice. We are the one's in bondage to sin and in danger of going to Hell. We're the one's in prison. We're the ones with the tummy ache and bad whool problem. We're the ones about to die, consigned to Hell. What good does it do us if we do not also take hold of Jesus' offer for LIFE? If you are short on cash and about to be evicted from your apartment, what good does it do you to pass up someone's FREE gift of money so that you might pay your rent? You have no means to earn enough before rent is due. Even with a job, it will do you no good with all the other bills you must pay. You will be short one way or another. You must take the grace given you by someone who has cash in abundance or you will lose out of home...or more.

  God's grace through His Son, Jesus, allows us to stand before God with a clean slate. It will be as if we never sinned. For when we accept Jesus, we are accepting His very spirit into our souls. When God looks at us on the day of judgment, He will be looking at His Son. His perfect, sinless Son. He will see us, you bet. But we will bear the very heart of Christ because of His sacrifice.

  This is why those who live by the law will die by it. This is why the law is not enough, even though the law is good and from God. It is not that God made a faulty system. But it's because we, who are faulty, did not live by the perfect system that God set up. And it is only the God's grace, Him stepping in and offering us a way out of our impending doom, that we have assurance for life.

  • 3:17 AM
  • 196 Views
  • 18 eProps
  • 31 Comments