Being a Christian isn’t about being nice. Being a Christian isn’t about being good or perfect. Being a Christian is about being honest…. first with God, then with yourself, and lastly with others. Honest about your true spiritual condition. Honest about your sinfulness. Honest about your inability to do anything “Good” on your own.
True Christianity starts with complete and utter honesty. Anything less than this is unacceptable to God. (Proverbs 28:13, 1 John 1:6,10)
“But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I AM A SINNER.’ (Luke 18:13)
Comments (6)
I remember reading a Hannah Hurnard novel long ago. It was about a little character named Much Afraid. The child lives in a Valley of Humiliation with her family, the Fearlings. Fortunately the child meets up with the Shepard. She learns from the Shepherd about a Kingdom of Love. She merely must trust and follow him. If so, he promises to help her escape the Valley for the high places and that she will be changed. He tells he that her imperfections will be no more and her feet will become “like hind’s feet”, able to leap gracefully and nimbly along even the steepest of paths.
If our brains are thinking, we’re lying.
@eshunt@revelife - You have to be careful with that sort of phrasing — the Lord does not disdain our rational thought process, He actually encourages us to use it. Consider Isaiah 1:18
Come, let us REASON together, says the Lord.
It’s the clearest example of this, but there are others (2 Peter 1:5-8 come readily to mind — so that you may be productive IN YOUR KNOWLEDGE of our Lord Jesus Christ.). I did a whole post years back that I will link for you about how the scriptural presentation of our “HEART” is not our emotions — but rather everything in a man that goes into our moving to action. here’s the Link: Scripture Abuse Part 4: Where is your “Heart”?
In any case, to do away with our brains entirely does away with our capacity to understand and respond to the Gospel, if one is to follow Romans 10:9-10 as a pattern. We preach so that others can hear, and from hearing comes comprehension which flows into response. We do need our brains, my friend, and God would not have it any other way.
@JulieMillerFan - I’ll look at the other article and also ask some others to look at what I said. Thanks for your concern.
I agree with your post.
Amen
Romans 6:1-7
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old selfI was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sinK)’> might be done away with,that we should no longer be slaves to sin 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin
So the rest of the story is growing in Christ.