“Well, you just can’t live anyway you want!”
Is that right?
Funny, you seem to be doing exactly that. You say that Christians can’t live anyway they want, but then you go right on committing the same sins over and over again, and omitting the same works for the neighbor over and over again.
So which is it? Can you, or can’t you just live anyway you want? And if not, then when are you going to get with the program?
And don’t you think your time would be better spent focusing on yourself, rather than worrying so much about Joe and Mary in the pew in front of you?
Just a few questions 😀
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Filed under: Christian Living |
The Old Adam Lives! 
My answer might suprise you, but I am going to wait for a few of you to chime in before I do.
Augustine said “Love God, and do as you please.”… that’s sort of good, but it leaves room for the doubting question “do I really love God?”…
The person who has been set free by the Gospel… by God’s declaration of love, forgiveness, & reconciliation in Christ, really is “free” to do as he pleases. ie.. “live any way he wants”. I suspect that his life will naturally appear more loving and caring in some ways but to attempt to quantify it is to return to an earlier bondage.
It’s a waste of time to focus on self or on Joe & Mary instead of Christ the rescuer.
We incorrectly see if we believe ourselves to now be ‘whole’ in the sense of having attained what we should be, for without a daily dying inwardly to sin, we are still, whatever our deeds or thoughts outwardly, beneath the domain of sin and operating only, feebly, towards an external pleasing of the law from such an incorrect place, ensnared by a terrible folly. The Christian is not yet beyond the hospital, where the condition is the remedy is being applied, but the recovery to full health is yet to be seen. Therefore, we must seek first God’s abounding grace each day to become new, joyous and thereby able to, in a measure of astonishment, do those works which are genuinely good, by His health and aid in these days of need.
http://wwwjustifiedsinner.blogspot.com/
A few thoughts…
We incorrectly see if we believe ourselves to now be ‘whole’ in the sense of having attained what we should be, for without a daily dying inwardly to sin, we are still, whatever our deeds or thoughts outwardly, beneath the domain of sin and operating only, feebly, towards an external pleasing of the law from such an incorrect place, ensnared by a terrible folly. The Christian is not yet beyond the hospital, where the condition is the remedy is being applied, but the recovery to full health is yet to be seen. Therefore, we must seek first God’s abounding grace each day to become new, joyous and thereby able to, in a measure of astonishment, do those works which are genuinely good, by His health and aid in these days of need.
Food for thought.
Leif Grane: “Justification by faith does not make human efforts futile or unimportant, just as it would be a misunderstanding to think that a Christian point of view should involve separating ourselves from all people who want to do something in the world. On the contrary, justification by faith means the freedom to endure justification’s confusion with [ethical] idealism because one’s life does not depend on works, and because there are no Christian works. . . . Faith remains hidden to the human eye. . . . The relationship between justification by faith and ethics does not imply a new ethic, but it makes us free to distinguish between good and evil and to act accordingly without any wish to obtain anything” (“Justification by Faith? An Unguarded Essay,” By Faith Alone, p. 39).
“Funny, you seem to be doing exactly that. You say that Christians can’t live anyway they want, but then you go right on committing the same sins over and over again, and omitting the same works for the neighbor over and over again.”
Are those not the hypocrites in the pot calling the kettle black?
“On the contrary, justification by faith means the freedom to endure justification’s confusion with [ethical] idealism because one’s life does not depend on works, and because there are no Christian works”
I agree…..but is there not a place in the Christian walk where we do not cause a brother or sister to stumble while we are out enjoying our freedoms?
Would we drink a glass of wine in our freedom at the table with a brother/sister who struggles with alcohol?
With freedom comes responsiblity.
Sometimes your posts are so cryptic. Did someone accuse you of not being holy enough? Have you been reading William Law, that sanctimonious blowhard who writes books about how you need to be holy, but himself, he just writes books?
I have a hard time empathizing with these posts much beyond tongue-in-cheek, since I and most everyone I hang out with tend to wink at one another’s tepidity.
Thanks, gentlemen for your comments.
I believe that we ought to live as Christ would have us live, for the sake of the other, and ourselves.
But, we just don’t want to, very often.
So the law does it work on us and drives us back to Christ, again and again…and again.
So, the first one we ought point fingers at is ourselves.