A Little Perspective on a Big Gospel
This evening early on I was sitting in our 'office' playing around on twitter and making new friends (follow me if you don't mind: @TruthMill) when a loud crash came from the kitchen - followed by screaming.
My wife and I both rushed in and found our little three year old Joshua surrounded by broken glass. He had been trying to get a drink and had grabbed a glass and then dropped it on the tile floor. As it turns out he was just fine because he froze. We got him out of there without a scratch on him and he's okay although he got quite the scare. So did mom and dad.
But this little adventure got me thinking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how this situation with little Joshua pictured it so perfectly.
He knew he needed something and had tried to help himself and gotten into trouble in the process. After the trouble hit, if he had tried to do anything else to help himself: run, walk, pick up the glass, you name it - he would have gotten hurt, perhaps badly - depending upon his actions. He needed someone bigger and more capable than himself to see his need and to rescue him from himself and the trouble he had created.
This is exactly our situation before God in regards to our sin, and what we often do to try and help ourselves. Because of inabilities that we bring to the party, we can't help ourselves out of our own sin. We just can't, and when we try God says that we make it much, much worse.
God tells us to just freeze and to let Him do the work. Then He asks us to trust in the work He has completed for us on the cross. We look up with little scared eyes, and reach up with little trusting arms, and He lifts us up to safety in arms that never fail (and in fact, cannot ever fail).
The gift of the cross is what is called God's grace. Grace has been given a twisted definition by many inside and outside of the church. Some say grace is only for the pretty people, or the rich people, or the smart people. Some say God dispenses His grace simply by His own whim and that it has nothing to do with us at all - that it is only about God.
All of these ideas about God's grace are wrong. As it turns out, God's grace is for people that need it. In fact, the whole of Romans chapter 5 points this out: the cross of Jesus Christ was for everyone who has been cursed with sin. That's all of us, so the cross was for all of us too.
When the Holy Spirit was speaking through the Apostle Paul in his writings to the early churches, He directed Paul to a very specific word in Greek to describe God's grace. That word is "Charis" (or Xaris). Aristotle, in his large treatment of the art of rhetoric (argument) gives this understanding that all Greek thinkers and writers understood (including the Apostle Paul):
Aristotle continues:
This is the exact picture of God's grace to us in the cross of Jesus Christ, and it was the perfect word for the Holy Spirit to direct Paul to inscribe within the pages of what would become the New Testament.
Please don't try to help yourself in regards to your standing before a just and holy God. You will not make it. You cannot make it. You are defeated before you start and more defeated after you've done your best.
God has provided the cure and it is in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Please don't let it go to waste.
Everything that God does require from you is relatively passive. He asks that you recognize your sin before Him, and that you then turn from it and to Him. Then He will take care of the rest. Our job is to admit our trouble and to reach up in faith. God takes care of moving us from the place of danger to the place of safety.
Ask God to save you through the work Jesus accomplished on the cross - ask Him to be the Lord of your life, and your life will never be the same.
My wife and I both rushed in and found our little three year old Joshua surrounded by broken glass. He had been trying to get a drink and had grabbed a glass and then dropped it on the tile floor. As it turns out he was just fine because he froze. We got him out of there without a scratch on him and he's okay although he got quite the scare. So did mom and dad.
But this little adventure got me thinking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how this situation with little Joshua pictured it so perfectly.
He knew he needed something and had tried to help himself and gotten into trouble in the process. After the trouble hit, if he had tried to do anything else to help himself: run, walk, pick up the glass, you name it - he would have gotten hurt, perhaps badly - depending upon his actions. He needed someone bigger and more capable than himself to see his need and to rescue him from himself and the trouble he had created.
This is exactly our situation before God in regards to our sin, and what we often do to try and help ourselves. Because of inabilities that we bring to the party, we can't help ourselves out of our own sin. We just can't, and when we try God says that we make it much, much worse.
God tells us to just freeze and to let Him do the work. Then He asks us to trust in the work He has completed for us on the cross. We look up with little scared eyes, and reach up with little trusting arms, and He lifts us up to safety in arms that never fail (and in fact, cannot ever fail).
The gift of the cross is what is called God's grace. Grace has been given a twisted definition by many inside and outside of the church. Some say grace is only for the pretty people, or the rich people, or the smart people. Some say God dispenses His grace simply by His own whim and that it has nothing to do with us at all - that it is only about God.
All of these ideas about God's grace are wrong. As it turns out, God's grace is for people that need it. In fact, the whole of Romans chapter 5 points this out: the cross of Jesus Christ was for everyone who has been cursed with sin. That's all of us, so the cross was for all of us too.
When the Holy Spirit was speaking through the Apostle Paul in his writings to the early churches, He directed Paul to a very specific word in Greek to describe God's grace. That word is "Charis" (or Xaris). Aristotle, in his large treatment of the art of rhetoric (argument) gives this understanding that all Greek thinkers and writers understood (including the Apostle Paul):
Aristotle's Rhetoric - Book II - Chapter 7 (my explanations in parentheses):
"Now let gratuitous benevolence (Grace) be "that conformably(Grace is from the one who has the power, to the one who needs it, but not for anything to be paid back to the giver - it is a free gift of mercy and love that is about the one in trouble - it is for the needy that grace even exists. In fact, without the needy grace cannot exist because for grace to be grace it requires an object, and by definition that object must need the actions of the bestowed grace)
to which he who has the power is said to confer a
benefit on one who needs it, not in return for anything,
nor in order that any thing may accrue to him who so
confers it, but that some benefit may arise to the object."
Aristotle continues:
"But it (grace) becomes great (even higher) should it be conferred on one
who is in extreme want, or if the boon be great and
difficult of attainment, or at a crisis of a certain
description, or if the giver has bestowed it alone, or
first, or in a greater degree than any other."
This is the exact picture of God's grace to us in the cross of Jesus Christ, and it was the perfect word for the Holy Spirit to direct Paul to inscribe within the pages of what would become the New Testament.
Please don't try to help yourself in regards to your standing before a just and holy God. You will not make it. You cannot make it. You are defeated before you start and more defeated after you've done your best.
God has provided the cure and it is in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Please don't let it go to waste.
Everything that God does require from you is relatively passive. He asks that you recognize your sin before Him, and that you then turn from it and to Him. Then He will take care of the rest. Our job is to admit our trouble and to reach up in faith. God takes care of moving us from the place of danger to the place of safety.
Ask God to save you through the work Jesus accomplished on the cross - ask Him to be the Lord of your life, and your life will never be the same.
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