When you understand the Gospel, it breaks down your preconceived ideas of who is acceptable to God and who isn’t. Jesus went out of his way to show that the love of God and his saving power knows no boundaries.
Faith
We all fall and we all fail, but what we do after falling short either sets us on a trajectory of grace and redemption, or guilt and shame.
Many Christians feel we’re losing the ‘culture war’. From SSM to euthanasia, the traditional Christian perspective has lost ground in much of mainstream society. We’re a minority.
We think of love, for example in marriage, as some kind of business deal, where one person commits to loving another as long as they receive love in return. But that’s not what God means by love at all.
The Bible was written in a polytheistic culture: a culture which believed that there were many gods. But there is one thing that distinguishes the Christian God from all other gods.
Many people don’t understand what being a Christian truly means. Many think it’s actually more about them than it is about Christ. Sounds a bit silly… but honestly a lot of people do.
In our Western world, it’s not difficult to lived a good life. But God has a very different life for those who choose to follow him. It’s a good life, but it’s more than good.
If you want to follow Jesus, there will be hardship and suffering. So, if it’s going to be like that, why continue to follow Jesus Christ?
“Feel the fear and do it anyway”. Every time I read this phrase or say it out loud I envisage a breath being drawn in and then exhaled right where the word “and” appears. It’s as though this word is the turning point.
We — the ones who follow Jesus — we must stop saying “God is good” only when good happens in our lives.