Conditional Grace (6/29/16)
Do you ever feel like you’re not good enough to serve Jesus? This isn’t an uncommon thought among Christians, especially those who are all too aware of their struggles with sin. However, we should never let our past sins keep us from serving God. Jesus Christ’s atoning, sacrificial death on the cross saves us from the consequences of our sin. God doesn’t choose perfect people to serve him because there aren’t any.
Even though God knows we’ll never be perfect, he still calls us to throw off the “sin that so easily entangles” (Hebrews 12:1). The difficulty with this is that when God or other people confront us about our sin, our normal, human reaction is to try and justify it. There are those rare occasions when we will humbly agree with those who challenge us but our normal, human reaction is to defend ourselves.
In his book Future Grace, John Piper writes: “Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God. No one sins out of duty. We sin because it holds out some promise of happiness. That promise enslaves us until we believe that God is more to be desired than life itself.” This quote makes sense because we wouldn’t break God’s commandments if we really thought they are what’s best for us. We wouldn’t justify sin if we desired God more. (more…)