Here is a typical scenario for a Christian today. See if any of this fits, and then let us know.
When you first became a Christian you were acutely aware of your sin. Indeed it was your sin and helplessness to stop it that drove you to Christ because you had heard that He had forgiven your sin, removed it as a barrier between you and God and even broken sin’s power over you on the cross. Suddenly salvation is free and being right with God is there for the taking. As to your own sin, you had nothing to hide. You were not measuring yourself as a semi-good person coming to the cross. You were not “joining God’s team.” You were despicable and incapable of anything good. And in your confession and forgiveness, you were washed clean, unburdened, overwhelmed with grace, thankful, open, honest and pure. You felt like a baby inside, giddy with delight, like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning, the spirits having done it all in one night! This is how you felt.
Then you started going to church and hanging around other Christians who have been Christians for a while and something gradually changed. A shift occurred. The shift was away from focusing on sin, the need for forgiveness and helplessness to produce anything good, and towards what you could do to become a better Christian.
The law or the process of obeying the commands of scripture became something attainable. It became something able to make good people better. And there are countless programs, seminars, small groups, books and studies to help you do this. Hardly any of these remind people of either their despicableness and their inability to do good; almost all of them help you to become better.
What is the goal? To be good people.
What do we try and show the world? That we are good peopleWhat happens when we turn out to really be bad people hiding behind a mask? People laugh at us and feel better about their own sin. What they supposed about us all along is true – we are a bunch of hypocrites – and the gospel is totally wasted on them. They never hear it. (The world only hears the gospel when it hears about our sin.)
What happens to the gospel, the cross, forgiveness, grace and the great feeling of astonishment? It becomes a story in the past – something to sing about and be sentimental over.
The New Covenant is the same as our conversion. We need the Spirit to begin and we need the Spirit to continue. The New Covenant requires our sinfulness and inadequacy to do anything good and it requires an unmasked life so that the miracle of the life of Christ can be easily seen in us and not confused with us.
If any of this has peaked your interest you should seriously consider jumping in on our Catch On Teleconference Study tomorrow night. See tomorrow’s Catch for all the details.
John Fischer The Catch 
How right you are…. we start so full of the wonderment of His love for us.. the forgiveness of sin; sin that we can’t forgive ourselves for but God does! I remember the total amazement I felt when I ‘really got it’… that God looks on our sin no more and that I should forgive myself and move forward.
How right you are…. we start with energy that changes over time… the qualifing of behaviors… the social acceptance of easy sins become part of our lives again…
Where does that feeling go??
Our Sunday School class is going over Luke 15 and we have started to study the Prodigal Son… so many new ideas… but the one this past Sunday that hit me in the gut was the fact that Jesus was saying that the elder son had a problem with sin too… his sin was one of righteousness…. “I have always obeyed you”…. “I have been good and what reward did you give me ‘dad’?”….
That is where I find myself… forgetting the forgiveness of sin and the amazement of it all…. and becoming a ‘what is in it for me?’ Christian because I have moved on from the forgiveness and started thinking it would be my continued ‘good behavior’ (my works) that can ‘keep me saved’….
I am still a sinner needing the forgiveness that only God can give but feeling awfully ashamed that I have to come back over and over to be forgiven… My shame comes from the fact that I failed God, or think I have failed God…. I don’t know but sometimes it seems harder every time I come back because I figure one of these times God will be tired of forgiving me over and over again…
Thankfully I just remembered this about the forgiveness…. God forgave me before I was even on this earth… that He knows all my sins – past, present and future – and He has forgiven me.. already.. I just need to remain faithful to confess and forgive myself so that I can be His Light in this world…..
It’s all about grace and law.
We begin our Christian lives in grace–salvation, mercy, forgiveness, redemption. It’s about what God has done for us. We are new in Christ and freed from sin! We are accepted! In purity of spirit we simply receive his love.
But then we continue our Christian lives in law–obedience, sacrifice, righteousness, godliness. It begins to be about what we do for God. We become fearful and in bondage to our sinfulness. We no longer feel acceptable. In a fearful spirit we need to earn his love.
And let’s be clear. It’s not about the grace of the gospel of salvation vs. the Mosaic Law of righteousness. Those are big theological issues. We’re talking about daily Christian life issues. There it’s about grace in the Spirit vs. Christian law (rules we create as Christians to make sure we, and others, really are Christians).
Either we live in the freedom of Christ through the power of the Spirit, or we live in bondage to Christian laws in the weakness of the flesh.
Paul took that on in Galatians. Christians will never be free in Christ trying to keep the Mosaic Law, or any kind of law, in the power of the flesh (what we do to try to please God). We are free in Christ only when we live by the law of God written in our hearts in the power the Holy Spirit (what God does in us for his pleasure).
“It is for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery…If we live the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” Galatians 5:1,25
Well said!
Simply another great Catch John…I passed this on to a number of friends!
In Jesus…your “old” friend,
Robin
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