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Thinking about grace and thinking about getting what you deserve.
Issues of Mercy & Justice i suppose.
My thoughts ::
Does God hold out on us because we don’t pray enough?
Does God give us more “blessing” or gift when we pray more?
Does God hold out on us when we mess up?
Does he give us more when we behave? When we’re good little Christians? And less when we don’t?
The list of questions could go on but I think that will do and you get the idea.
The good Rev. Thomas McKenzie made a point in his sermon a week or so ago at Redeemer that God doesn’t punish us. All punishment was absorbed in the person of Jesus Christ. I think that’s true. And I think it’s an important theological point. But it doesn’t answer the questions above. At least not for me.
Now I don’t think God works like that, giving and taking based on our “performance” or something but it sure feels like that sometimes, doesn’t it. Maybe it’s just the way we have been taught to think? Partly based on God in the OT and partly based on the art of coercion that the Church is WAY to good at.
So how does it really work?
How does God interact with us if not in the way insinuated by the questions above?
Thinking through the issues grace in real life and connecting the dots.
HELP!
Embracing Grace and peace
Erik
September 12th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Erik – I didn’t hear the sermon, so I would be curious to know what is meant by punish? Was he referring to punishment in the retributive sense or the discipline sense? If in the retributive sense, I agree, but if he was thinking in the discipline sense then he is wrong. Hebrews 12:4-11 speaks of God disciplining his children just like earthly parents do. John in Rev 3:19 also shows that discipline is to be considered a normal part of the Christian life. So, in sense God may withhold things from us as a means of discipline.
However, your questions seem to be putting the focus on the wrong agent. It is not that God wants to hold out on you, but it is you who cause yourself to miss out on God’s blessings. Does that make sense. God is not some tempermental supreme being just waiting to hold out, but instead is both loving and just. I think your questions would be better asked this way:
Do I miss out on God’s blessing because I don’t pray enough?
Do I receive God’s blessing more because of prayer?
Do I miss out because I sin?
Why is it important to obey God?
To the first question you asked about not praying enough. First, I think that a lot of times Christians don’t receive because they simply don’t ask or have faith that God will answer. I know for myself I don’t really understand the power or importance of prayer. This is going to be my next writing project. Matt 7:7-12, Jesus says ask and it will be given to you. This passage is not about salvation, it is about prayer. Second, I think that we ask for the wrong things or we assume by praying God should always answer yes. It isn’t that God is holding out on us, it is more of God protecting us from the consequences of the things asked for. A personal example is that I have prayed that God give me more money but when I look at it truthfully I know that if God gives me more money pride will set in, greed sets in and even though I can mask my request in I’ll help people, deep down it is for personal, greedy reason I want more money. So, I think that when Christians are praying for the right things it may seem that God is blessing them more when in fact they are just praying for the things that God already wants to give them. That is why I think it is extremely important that Christians learn how to pray properly.
Your last question is an important question as well. What is the point of loving Jesus? Is accepting Jesus just to get me to heaven or are there earthly benefits as well. This is a razor’s edge of a question because on one side you can fall into legalism and on the other you can fall into living any way you want. There is a balance to the orthopraxy of Christianity. God does command us to live a holy life and there are benefits to that lifestyle, yet this lifestyle doesn’t save us. So, not sure if all of this answers or helps your questioning, but you did get my thoughtful juices flowing this morning.
Overall, to your topic – you must remember that we deserve hell. The slightest sin in God’s eyes is still deserving of death and hell. Therefore, having Jesus should be enough of a reward to know that eternity will not be in hell. Anything God gives me (including Jesus) is well beyond what I deserve.
September 16th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
James,
Hey bro, I don’t mean to be harsh but I know the Sunday school answer. And maybe it’s even the right one, but I don’t know.
But what about Job, what about the kids in Africa who haven’t done anything to dodge God’s gifts yet find themselves hungry and homeless. I’m not Job and I’m not a starving or African but I can attest to times in my life where I felt like I hadn’t don’t anything “wrong” but it felt like nothing was going right. You know what I mean?
And I think our thinking / theology of prayer is anemic. There is something to “asking” but He does LOTS of things we don’t’ ask for and doesn’t do most of what we do. So prayer has to be more than that. Right?
Part of me wants to agree that we don’t get because we don’t ask. But part of me want to write that saying on an American flag and burn it! There’s something true to that but it’s so warped in our American consumerist evangelical leanings that I think it might loose all it’s true-ness because it become consumerist not Kingdom of God-ist. It becomes name it, claim it or something like that. And I am sure that’s not what you mean or where you are going with it but do you see how we (the Church) lives there too often?
And so I don’t want to change my questions.
I want to sit and think and pray about how my prayers interact with the father, son, and holy spirit. I want to ponder how my obedience and lack there of effects my getting what God has for me.
And personally I’m not willing to say, “this is how it is” because this is a layered and complex questions. It has so many facets and so much texture that I think the conversation is maybe the important part.
I think maybe a lot of the answer has to do with perspective and our limited one but who knows?
Keeping the conversation going!
Grace and peace
Erik
September 17th, 2009 at 9:02 am
thinking about my flag comment and realizing that might have been a little harsh!
The thought is simple though, we are Americans and i think we expect to get whatever we want. And i think that sentiment has permeated our churches / Christians. Yes?
I just wonder if people in other places, specifically let fortunate places, think like that? How does a mother living in the slums of India interpret, “Whatever you ask in my name…”
And you might want to say, “well that’s an extreme. Come on…” but when nearly half the worlds population lives in poverty, and i imagine some of them know Jesus, i think it’s a valid question. As Christians, as American Christians i don’t think we can read the bible and just interpret it from our safe upper class bubble. We need to read, asking what this mean for me and my brothers and sisters who are in need.
So, sorry for the flag burning statement. I don’t really have a desire to burn the flag. Promise!
September 17th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Maybe as American Christians we don’t understand what a blessings and gifts are. We assume they are external and material, when in fact, maybe blessings and gifts are to be thought of as mostly spiritual and intangible? Thoughts? So, when we pray for blessings we assume the wrong thing? Just a thought…
September 17th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
James, i’ve recently started to preach through the sermon on the Mt. and this question, the question of blessing is front and center.
Here is my proposal :: Maybe blessing is more about the presence of God than the gifts of God.
What do you think about that?
As i read and try to piece things together it seems to make a lot of sense.
September 18th, 2009 at 11:16 am
I think theologically, it is important to distinguish the difference between gifts and blessings. Gifts to me refer to the gifts of the Spirit and other markers of the Christian faith (i.e. things that help us live our Christian lives–grace, faith, love, hope, patience, kindness). Blessings then are much different from gifts and not all blessings are the same for each person, where the gifts are available to all. Does that make sense?
September 18th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
James, i think i was pretty clearly distinguishing gifts from blessing. So we’re on the same track there.
And I hear what your saying but i wouldn’t really agree, i don’t think. I think gifts are wider than what you are referring to. Including the gifts of the spirit but not limited to that. And i think blessing might be more narrow than how your viewing it. I think blessings might be all about God’s manifestation in our lives and not about any possession that he gives us. So i think blessing is relational, it’s about God’s presence and not about any of his “gifts”.
Just some thoughts. Who knows, i could read something tonight and change my mind. But my reading of the beatitudes seems to support this, but maybe i’m reading into it or something.
Grace and peace
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Good thing that one’s thoughts on gifts and blessings don’t have eternal ramifications
. However, that said, I do disagree with you and think that it is switched. Gifts should be understood very narrowly and blessings are the wider subject. Yes, blessings are relational, but so are gifts and both should be about God’s prescence. The OT was clear that blessings were based on obedience and I think that carries on into the NT but with a twist. The twist is that the blessings may not always be physical, but are more spiritual (read non-tangible). As for gifts, they are always tangible (even spiritual gifts can be seen or felt), in the OT and NT gifts play a vital role in the edification and advancement of the church, blessings seem to be more individualized. So, maybe that is the difference gifts=corporate while blessings=personal.
I don’t know, just some thoughts, but I guess I have always read that it is the other way around…gifts are narrow and blessings are broad.