| WHAT IT’S ALL
ABOUT
We live in a dream. We say to
ourselves, I would be all right IF ONLY
- I could lose some weight and
put down those Snickers bars
- I could go to the gym and
work out regularly (I’d have pecs like rocks and abs like a
washboard)
- I could have plastic surgery
– nose job, tummy tuck, rear lift, breast
augmentation
- I wasn’t so clumsy in social
situations (I’d really wow ‘em)
- I had some taste and could
decorate my house
- I could get organised
- I could stop drinking so
much
- I could stop smoking
- I knew more -- more doctrine,
more science, more finance, more about investing
- I could just "do
bettah"
- I COULD CLEAN UP MY
ACT
For some
reason or other, we think Christianity aims at giving us all
these things. We think of Christianity as a gigantic
self-improvement movement: Dale Carnegie, Zig Ziglar, and
Susan Powder, all rolled into one, the Holy Trinity of
Self-Betterment.
These things may remove your
embarrassment, but not your problem. The truth is,
none of these (laudable or desirable as they may be)
will make you "better" and none of them will cure you, because
none of them addresses your real problem: the sin
that makes you the enemy of the Almighty God. Only
repentance (turning away from sin and begging for
forgiveness), only receiving the grace of God cures that.
Sin is our problem, and only a cure for sin will
help.
Christianity is
- not self improvement,
- not self-atonement,
- not guilt
manipulation,
- not striving to be all you
can be,
- not going for the
gusto,
- not knowledge,
- not will-power,
- not emotions,
- not speaking in
tongues,
- not moralism,
- not cleaning up your
act,
- not doing good, or
doin’ bettah,
- not happy-happy-happy all
the time-time-time,
- not keeping a stiff upper
lip,
- not nerves of steel
- not a heart of wax with a
head of mush.
Christianity is
the grace of God in the death of Christ.
We don’t seem to
realise that God has changed us. He doesn’t aim at a
mere "improvement," even a great improvement. God is
not about pleasing us. He probably will leave you
buck-toothed, flat-chested, broad-beamed, flat-footed,
hook-nosed, or flat-nosed (though he leaves you free to change
those things if you desire). His love for us – and his plan
for "improving" us -- embodies something much deeper:
holiness, conforming us to the image of Christ..
The change is not superficial,
not plastic surgery, not new pecs and abs, not
losing 30 pounds of ugly fat, not even lipo-suction – but a
change clean to the bone and heart and will. Everything that
was dead to God is made alive in Christ. We become new
men.
And not a new man
alone, but a new man in community, in fellowship with
the saints, a member in the body of Christ, his Church.
God has prepared for us a glory
so glorious that if we could grasp it, we would think that we
know absolutely nothing about glory at all.
-- F. Sanders
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