I am having a problem the last day or two with somethings I have read vs. what i am hearing. In the gospel of John i keep reading things like 15:14 "Your are My friends if you do what I command you." 14:23 "if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him" 15:10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." Then today i read 1st John 2:3-6 "By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, I have come to know HIm, and does not keep His commandments , is a liar and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked." 3:6 "No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him" 3:10 "By this the children of God and the dhildren of the devil are obvious; anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nore the one who does not love his brother." 3:22 "whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight."
That is not all of it, I am just trying to resolve the issue somehow that God loves us regardless but against these and other scriptures it seems to say that we have to keep "His commandments" which by the way are what? all i could find immediatly surrounding this was John 15:12-17 "This is My commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you." so is this instead of the old commandments or on top of them or inclusive of them. My real point though is that I don't keep the old commandments or the new ones, does this according to these words from Jesus mean that I am not accepted, Loved or whatever you want to call it. I know i don't live righteously and i don't "love my brother" I trust Jesus and His sacrifice to pay the penalty for my sins but is that not enough? Is He not pleased with me since i don't live up to the commands that He has given, this seems to be teaching the opposite of what i hear from Steve Brown and Marc Driscoll and Greg Dumas and most bible teachers i have heard. i am lost and confused and wondering if i have any chance. i was just thinking.....
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8 comments:
I don't find these scriptures to fly in the face of a guy like Steve Brown.
All Steve says is that we're free... free to obey or disobey. And whichever we choose, we reap the results of that choice.
We're free to disobey. So when we do obey, it's not out of obligation or formula, but out of respect, honor & love.
I haven't listened to the other guys you mentioned, so I can't comment on them.
For me, the Bible is clear that the more we know Him, the more we keep His commands. The manner in which we obey God is outside evidnce of the real relationship going on within.
Good post!
John 14:23 "Jesus replied, 'If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching..."
The above scripture is stating a fact. I'll state a similar fact...
"If you jump off of a building, you will fall."
If you love Him, you will end up obeying him. So the question isn't really, "Am I obeying Him?" It's, "Do I love Him?"
It's a matter of focus that Steve Brown is talking about. He's not telling people that obedience isn't important, he's telling people to stop focusing on their behavior, because that won't lead to more obedience. Steve wants people to love God so that they will end up obedient. And the only way that people will love God is if they stop obsessing on their goodness or badness and start obsessing on His love.
1 John 4:19 "We love because he first loved us."
You love Him because He first loved you and if you love Him you will end up obeying Him.
This is hard to put into action in real life for me. So does my lack of obedience then mean that I don't love Him cause I have felt that in the past that maybe I don't love Him that is why this is so difficult, and if I don't then how do I get to that point? What if I think I have loved Him in the past but I really didn't? Or, if I did really love Him and don't anymore and it went away so slowly that I didn't notice?
Thanks you guys so much for helping me with this.
I'd say forget about your love for Him and forget about obedience. Don't even think about those things.
Only think about the Biblical truth that He loves you unconditionally without any conditions no matter how badly you behave. As soon as some thought about obedience pops up, think about how you have the righteousness of Christ and that your righteousness is irrelevant compared to that.
As a result you will end up loving Him because He first loved you and to the degree you love Him you will obey Him.
But forget about that and let Him love you.
That's what I'd say.
Thanks I will try. Who is saying it by the way, the thing just says etcetera, i'm guessing Eric but thats just a guesse, but thank you for helping.
something that worried me the other day was on Stupidchurchpeople.com one of the people on there were asked how they became a non-believer and they said that they started out as a religious type then discovered and began to live the freedom and grace stuff and that led them to full blown atheism eventually. I can't really see myself ever being an atheist again but i couldn't see myself doing a lot of the things i have done either. any thoughts?
Hey man...just realized you asked me a question. Yeah, this is Erik.
On the bailing on Jesus thing...
I can only speak for myself, but if it weren't for the realization that God loves me even if I don't love Him back, I would have given up on the faith a long time ago.
The demands that are placed on Christians are insane. The attempt to pull off what most Churches demand of people is more likely to cause folks to give up on Christianity as impossible than the idea of grace.
I'm not much on religion or what passes for Christianity in many circles, but because of His grace I'll never bail on Jesus. Where am I gonna go? He has the words of life.
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