As we have been taking a closer look at the gospel, Bryan and I have had many great discussions about how living gospel is really about finding that perfect balance between obedience of God's laws and also recognizing the beautiful truth that there is nothing I can do to earn God's favor...when He looks at me, He sees Christ.
One step in either direction will find me either legalistic or feeling like I have the freedom to do whatever I want, because I am forgiven. For me, to be completely transparent, I tend to fall more into the legalistic category. In my flesh, I like having rules to follow by which to exam how "good" I am or "bad" I am. The problem is, when I do that...my heart remains untouched and my sin grows and my perspective of the gospel becomes very warped. And, to top it off, I then have to fight off a judgemental attitude when I see others breaking the "rules" I feel they should be keeping to "be holy as He is holy."
Since I know that that is a weakness of mine, I am always excited to read new articles that stretch me and my legalistic tendency's! Today, Challies did that for me in his post, "Is Smoking Sinful?" While I don't agree with every aspect 100 % (I think there is a bit more to be said about our body's being the temple of the Holy Spirit), I really appreciated the thoughts he shared and the quotes he had in there by John Piper. It got me thinking and stretching...two things that I need to do as much of as possible!! Hope you feel streched as well and feel free to comment! :)
“Don’t pick out a few individual named sins, but let your definition of sin be sweeping and pervasive so that it touches everything. And let your definition of holiness be the same. How you drink Coke, eat pizza, or exercise can all be sin issues, or not.” John Piper
One step in either direction will find me either legalistic or feeling like I have the freedom to do whatever I want, because I am forgiven. For me, to be completely transparent, I tend to fall more into the legalistic category. In my flesh, I like having rules to follow by which to exam how "good" I am or "bad" I am. The problem is, when I do that...my heart remains untouched and my sin grows and my perspective of the gospel becomes very warped. And, to top it off, I then have to fight off a judgemental attitude when I see others breaking the "rules" I feel they should be keeping to "be holy as He is holy."
Since I know that that is a weakness of mine, I am always excited to read new articles that stretch me and my legalistic tendency's! Today, Challies did that for me in his post, "Is Smoking Sinful?" While I don't agree with every aspect 100 % (I think there is a bit more to be said about our body's being the temple of the Holy Spirit), I really appreciated the thoughts he shared and the quotes he had in there by John Piper. It got me thinking and stretching...two things that I need to do as much of as possible!! Hope you feel streched as well and feel free to comment! :)
“Don’t pick out a few individual named sins, but let your definition of sin be sweeping and pervasive so that it touches everything. And let your definition of holiness be the same. How you drink Coke, eat pizza, or exercise can all be sin issues, or not.” John Piper
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