It's how you say it...

My cyberfriend Shannon has an entry on her blog where she's talking about "there but for the grace of God..."  It's a good post, as her posts usually are, but there's one sentence in it that bothers me enough that I've been thinking about it off and on since I read it yesterday. So I decided to blog about it, but I also decided that I would leave her a comment as well.  This blog entry is an extension of the comment, I think.  Or I'm using that comment as a jumping off point for continuing my thought process.

My comment on her blog:

Shannon said: " So, whenever I come across those who are living a life of sin, which is just about everybody I come into contact with at work, I will just love them the way I believe that God wants. "

I can't help but wonder - isn't that just about everyone you meet anywhere, not just at work? We all break the 10 commandments at some point during the day. There are devout Christians who are morbidly obese - gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, if you believe in that list - do you think of them as "people living a life of sin," or is your description limited to folks whose sin is of a sexual nature?

I'm not fighting with you, honest... but when I read your extended post, and ran across that line, it smacked of self-righteousness to me. In fact, it reminded me of a time, years ago, when one of my roommates came home from her Bible study upset with the study leader because he kept saying "Sinners will tell you that...." as if he wasn't also a sinner.

Yes, Christians live in a state of grace (if we keep our slate clean with God through repentance), and yes, sexual sin is wrong. And so is gluttony, and hatred, and bitterness, and gossip. But I don't hear a lot of Christians fussing about those, ya know?

It's not often I disagree with something that you say, and it's really only your phrasing that I'm disagreeing with. I *do* agree that we are called to love people, just as God loves them. And I do agree that sin is sin. I'm just thinking that probably 100% of the human population on this planet lives a life of sin, it's just that some of us are covered by the redeeming blood of Christ.

One thing that was interesting to me as I read her blog entry was that I had just read a quotation by Asimov that I agreed with, even though he was speaking as an atheist.

Asimov said:

If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people
on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words.
I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every
word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. -Isaac Asimov,
scientist and writer (1920-1992)

Now, obviously I don't agree with his entire comment - God doesn't save us based on the totality of our lives - he saves us based on our confession of faith in his Son, Jesus Christ.

But... the New Testament makes it clear that there will be people in front of the great white throne who are looking at God saying "You have to know me! Look at all the stuff I did in your name!" And God's going to look at them and say "I dont know you at all. Buh-bye." (fiwit's paraphrase)

And they'll be cast into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. 

One thing that I always thought was interesting, in CS Lewis' Narnia Chronicles, was book seven, "The Last Battle." (It's been almost a decade since I last read this series, so my memory is hazy) 

In this book, towards the end, all the inhabitants of Narnia are walking through a doorway.  The doorway looks like it leads into a very common shed-type structure, but in fact, what they found on the inside depended on who they were and what they believed.  Aslan's followers walked through the doorway and found themselves in a new Narnia, with none of the limitations of the original one.  The followers of Tash, Aslan's enemy, found themselves in a different location when they walked through the doorway.
Except one follower of Tash walked through the doorway and found himself in the new Narnia. He looked at Aslan in consternation and asked how this could be, since he had served Aslan's enemy, not Aslan.
Aslan looked through him, as only a lion such as Aslan can do, and told him that his actions proved who he was really serving.  He had spent his life living love, not hatred, and thus was really one of Aslan's followers.

It was something like that, anyway.  And some who thought they were Aslan's followers wound up going with Tash's followers, because of their actions in life.

Asimov's quotation reminded me of that scene in "The Last Battle."  Shannon's words did not.

Christians have to walk a fine line.  We are called to be holy, because we serve a holy God. And yet, we are incapable of being holy. We are stained with original sin. 

Some of us know that God can cleanse us of that stain, cover us with His holiness.

And some of us start to think that this borrowed holiness is actually our own, which leads to self-righteousness.

Please note: I am not saying that about Shannon.  I'm just using that  one sentence of hers as a jumping-off point for my own thoughts.

Those who start to think that the borrowed holiness is actually our own become like the TV preacher Asimov mentions, whose words are "God, God, God," but whose actions are "foul, foul, foul." 

Those of us who don't, need to watch ourselves just as closely, lest we start to think that we can never be holy, and use that "knowledge" as an excuse to not even try.

Back to that fine line.  *sigh* 

The final answer is Love.  And it's up to each of us to learn how to display the love that God gives to us.  To everyone, not just the ones we agree with.   That's what Shannon was saying in her post, and what Lewis was saying in his book.

Thanks Shannon, for giving me something to chew on. :)

Comments

[shannonblogs]

You're welcome, Fiwit. Glad to know that some of my ill chosen words can make a difference for good! I just want to say, though, that being a sinner (which is what I am) and living a life of sin are two different things. The people I work with surround me with profanity and course sexual joking that they want me to be a part of. I struggle with it daily. My blog entry was just expressing my reaction to that, not expressing my opinion about Christians versus non-Christians.