Wanna ruin the gift of God in Christ? Would you like to distort grace?
Here is how: First and foremost ... soften the demand, and go easy on the sin.
Pretend that God is okay with the trespass, and able to shrug it off. Make it as though nothing much really happened. Nothing dire could ever come from it.
Then after making the offense amount to absolutely nothing of consequence ... THEN, say you are forgiven ... no longer condemned.
Right?
Big deal ... eh? So what? It was shrugged off, as nothing anyway, so big deal if I am forgiven, right?
That is how you can absolutely ruin the gift of forgiveness.
BUT, that is not how God operates. He has never softened His Holy demands. Nor will He!
Each trespass is dire! Each consequence of sin is wrath and death. The transgression of the least of the law, is the transgression of all of it.
Ever tell a lie? Well God cannot see you as anybody better than a blasphemer and adulterer, and murderer. It is all the same, corrupt to the core, and not worth improving. Only worth replacing by faith ... a whole trading of your filthy righteousness for His sparkling perfection ... by faith in the Lord Jesus.
So, I don't have much room in my heart for those that soften God's demands ... and thereby ruin redemption ... making it of no effect.
For I know in my heart of hearts ... that I have been forgiven of much ... and saved as a gift. It is not a mild thing, a painless pardon ... a letting off the hook.
God isn't going soft. Rather it is much more than that.
Each instance of imperfection from my birth until I am gone ... God has seen all the reasons to shed wrath on me ... blotting me out of His book of Life ... and Christ paid for each offense, not just canceling the offense, but actually paying for it in full with something more precious to God than any 10,000. The price was great, because the sin was great... but greater still is what was offered! Sufficient to turn the tide of death, and quicken many to Life ... Eternal Life - God's very own!
Forgiveness is only real, to those that need it. And if God is going soft, then forgiveness wasn't really needed anyway.
http://gracehead.com/junk/trackback.php/689
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