The Internet Monk has a great post here on our two traditional ways of viewing God. We may be most familiar with the vision of God as angry and waiting to smite us, and in fact, despite the actions of Jesus, He might just decide to smite us anyway. Many of us are comfortable with that world view. It explains all the unpleasant experiences that fall on our heads.
Sadly, many people, even church-going people, are less familiar with the view of a God who loves us--who loves us so much that this God keeps looking for ways to be with us.
We're not comfortable with the idea of grace. We have the suspiciousness of 9 year olds: what do I have to do, and why does that person who's behaving wrong get the same amount of grace as I do?
We're not comfortable with the idea of a creation that is wondrous and God-drenched. We're much more happy with the notion of a fallen creation, one that has been abandoned until some later point when Christ returns.
Our puny ideas of grace let us off the hook. If we believe that creation is damned, then we won't work to save it. If we think that we're Christians so that we get to go to Heaven some day, we don't have to do the hard work of Kingdom building in this world.
God calls us to be so much more.
but bestows favor on the humble
6 months ago
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