Thursday 24 February 2011

How do we so easily become indifferent to Jesus?

I wonder. Is it easier for those who have never before known how to enter, to accept the Good News, than for those who have heard the Good News but have latched onto (often from childhood, because that's when they were taught it) an incomplete or warped or even false version of it that still requires good works, or following "the Law" or whatever?


And why would people want to accept Jesus and get through the gate, and then spend the rest of their lives "trying to stay" by their own righteousness, in whatever form they think that involves?



There is a world of difference between doing good works because you love Jesus and love others with His love that is in you and flows out of you; and doing good works to try and keep your place in the Kingdom, as if what Jesus has done is really not sufficient.

How is it that we so quickly and easily become indifferent to Jesus? And turn to the Law and/or other substitutes to try to maintain our salvation and/or increase our righteousness? Or how can we just smugly accept our salvation, take it for granted, and then "get on with life" now that we feel safe in our fire insurance policy, or whatever? And not even be concerned about the safety of others?

1 comment:

Mark said...

Norma,

I find that sometimes it is very easy to honestly slip into the works mode, and quit relying on His grace. In fact I have been living in works in one area of my life for quite awhile and wasn't even aware of it until recently. What you have been writing resonates with me, because it is where I am in many ways.

I think the fact that we so easily falter speaks to the powerful grip that the old system had on us, and the depth to which it was entrenched. I look forward to seeing what my children do as they grow up, unencumbered by the lies you and I grew up in.

Mark