So it’s 10 after 11 and I’m laying here in bed thinking about stuff and a question that’s popped into my head from earlier today is this:
Has the church, in it’s whole, lost the concept and demonstration of grace?
While I’m not justifying sin, etc. I wonder has the church become more of a institution that has set up pilimanary hedges of protection to protect us against the things how God doesn’t want us to be (like the pharisees)? Do we try to live righteously on our own means and traditions, and what we think is “living right”? I believe some traditions can keep us from being obedient from what and who God created us to be. Condemnation, judging, gossiping, backstabbing I think has no place in the church, were just a bunch of messed up people, with problems. Were saved saints adopted in Gods family. Why isn’t grace demonstrated knowing this?
That’s just some thought’s…I don’t know if they even make sense. What do you think?
Yes, it has. But not in the sense that it has rejected the truth of grace. I think what the church has grasped is a few ideas about grace and what lives lived in the light of grace should look like. Then when it fails to be lived out in that way, that's when condemnation, judgement, gossiping, and backstabbing start to corrode these ideas of grace and unbelievers and believers alike get burned by the substitute of life changing grace. The reason "grace" has failed in the church is because the church has lost its focus on the sustainer of that grace… Jesus Christ. Until the church sets aside its programs and "sure-fire" methods, the church will continue to rip off its own with its packaged deals to save your soul and to set you on the straight and narrow… with ultimately benefits both the receiver with "salvation" or "renewal" and the church with a little bit more pocket money for the materials the the receiver needs to live a more dedicated life for the Lord. I believe that the early church would look at the way we pitch "grace" with disgust and ask, "When will you just set your sights on Christ and let his example lead your life?" You want to know what grace looks like? Grace is Christ, God humbling himself to take on human flesh, living our life, and then dying and rising again to give us freedom to live life freely in light of his example. An example that the world so desperately needs to see on a day-to-day basis.