God Expects More
God indeed expects more out of Christians than the church in the West is currently aspiring to. He expects Christians to live holy lives (e.g. Eph. 4:17 - 5:20). He expects us to die to self; to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, to take up our crosses. He expects us to partake in making disciples of all nations, to love our neighbor as ourselves and to care for the least of these. He expects us to love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and strength, but He has also empowered us to do so.
Living like that is the evidence that we have been born again, not the cause of us being born again. It is the evidence of real justification, not the means. Of course, as Paul says in Philippians 3, we have not yet obtained all this, but we press on toward the goal and we live up to what we have already attained (Php. 3:7-16).
The tragedy of modern American Evangelicalism is that we have dumbed down the Gospel and the Christian life to the point where I can have little more than a pulse and a profession and still be considered a Christian.
Living like that is the evidence that we have been born again, not the cause of us being born again. It is the evidence of real justification, not the means. Of course, as Paul says in Philippians 3, we have not yet obtained all this, but we press on toward the goal and we live up to what we have already attained (Php. 3:7-16).
The tragedy of modern American Evangelicalism is that we have dumbed down the Gospel and the Christian life to the point where I can have little more than a pulse and a profession and still be considered a Christian.
Labels: Christian Life
posted by Steve at
1:19 PM
1 Comments:
God expects perfection.
He expects that we be more righteous than the scribes or Pharisees were.
But, at the right time, He died for sinners.
Sure, I'm not what God expects that I be. He knows what I really am. But I am a forgiven sinner.
That's the gospel.
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