Here's an excerpt from Martin Luther, "The Freedom of a Christian" that I thought was worth sharing.
"The 3rd benefit of faith is that it unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. By this mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul become one flesh. And if they are one flesh and there is between them a true marriage...it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil.
Accordingly the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has though it were its own, and whatever the soul has Christ claims as His own. Let us compare these and we shall see inestimable benefits.
Christ is full of grace, life and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death and damnation. Now let faith come between them and sins, death and damnation will be Christ's, while grace, life and salvation will be the soul's; for if Christ is bridegroom, He must take upon Himself the things which are His bride's and bestow upon her the things that are His.
If He gives her His body and very self, how shall He not give her all that is His? And if He takes the body of the bride, how shall He not take all that is hers?
Wow!
Monday, December 5, 2011
Friday, December 2, 2011
Consumed by Fear?
Undoubtedly, if you hang around church people or are a church person yourself, you have heard or thought things like this:
-The liberals are threatening the Christian foundational values of our nation.
-Legalizing gay marriage will erode the moral fabric of our society
-If we don't fight evolutionism and promote the literal creation story of Genesis 1 and 2, then the Bible will lose all its authority
-A Christian should never vote for a candidate who is pro-choice
-If there is no eternal damnation in hell, then there is no reason to live for God today
-The government shouldn't help poor people, but individual Christians should. We need to fight the poor's sense of entitlement or our American, capitalist society will fall apart.
-The gospel is first and foremost about personal, individual salvation. The salvation of creation, culture, and the world is secondary, or a byproduct of the 1st salvation. If we confuse this, then we will lose the gospel entirely.
There are many more thoughts that are similar in the evangelical church today. I'm not here to argue whether or not these statements are true or false. But the overwhelming sense I get from all of these discussions is that we, the american church, are consumed with fear. We don't know how to talk about these issues without getting really nervous, argumentative, and afraid of people who have different views than we do. This is very unfortunate, since these are very important topics. We need to talk about these things! But we need to talk about them without fear. God is not too small to handle our questions and disagreements. We can't be afraid of people who think differently than we do. We need to trust that God is sovereign - He alone holds the world in this hands and He alone is the head of the church. He will not cease to be good, and the Bible will not lose it's power if people in the church have these discussions. We need not be afraid!
"Perfect love drives out fear" Let's strive to love more, and argue with fear less.
-The liberals are threatening the Christian foundational values of our nation.
-Legalizing gay marriage will erode the moral fabric of our society
-If we don't fight evolutionism and promote the literal creation story of Genesis 1 and 2, then the Bible will lose all its authority
-A Christian should never vote for a candidate who is pro-choice
-If there is no eternal damnation in hell, then there is no reason to live for God today
-The government shouldn't help poor people, but individual Christians should. We need to fight the poor's sense of entitlement or our American, capitalist society will fall apart.
-The gospel is first and foremost about personal, individual salvation. The salvation of creation, culture, and the world is secondary, or a byproduct of the 1st salvation. If we confuse this, then we will lose the gospel entirely.
There are many more thoughts that are similar in the evangelical church today. I'm not here to argue whether or not these statements are true or false. But the overwhelming sense I get from all of these discussions is that we, the american church, are consumed with fear. We don't know how to talk about these issues without getting really nervous, argumentative, and afraid of people who have different views than we do. This is very unfortunate, since these are very important topics. We need to talk about these things! But we need to talk about them without fear. God is not too small to handle our questions and disagreements. We can't be afraid of people who think differently than we do. We need to trust that God is sovereign - He alone holds the world in this hands and He alone is the head of the church. He will not cease to be good, and the Bible will not lose it's power if people in the church have these discussions. We need not be afraid!
"Perfect love drives out fear" Let's strive to love more, and argue with fear less.
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