November 30 is my spiritual birthday. That’s when I was first touched by amazing grace! Back then, I experienced a day and night difference. My world was turned upside down with feelings of happiness. I was a new creation.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

As John Newton said, “How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed”

This meant (I thought at the time) that I would enjoy my best life now with no major obstacles. I’d complete my doctoral dissertation with no sweat, and I’d quickly be married to an excellent Christian wife.

Wasn’t that what it meant to be a child of God? Nope, it didn’t quite work out the way I thought it would.

Why?

Because without realizing it, I was focused more on what I could get from God than on who he was. Indeed, what my attitude really amounted to was “Lord, if you won’t quickly meet my needs, don’t expect me to go out of my way to change my way of doing things or bother too much with learning what it means to please you.” 

With that attitude, God allowed me to enter a very dry time. (While at the same time continually protecting and preserving me much more than I realized!)  

God used many ways to change my attitude, but today I want to focus on just one. He brought me into fellowship with some strong Christian helpers. Amazingly, I first met them on April Fool’s Day! (I love how it says in 1 Corinthians 4:10 We are fools for Christ) 


Even with a renewed attitude, it still is taking much time for God’s beautiful truths to better percolate through more of my life. I knew the Bible was doctrinally true but was pretty poor at connecting it to the life changes God was calling for in a stubborn, independent man. 

So, it’s been helpful to have Christian friends who connect the truths of God and scripture to daily real life and who lovingly let me know when I am full of baloney. 

I never did complete my doctoral dissertation. And it took nine years until I married the love of my life. And another 10 years after that before I finally found my true vocational calling from God (Not a professor but a computer geek!)  

My story shows how we have a patient and longsuffering God who cares enough to spend decades molding and shaping us to be more like what he wants. And the more I grow, the more I see I still need to grow. Wherever you are on your journey, be encouraged that God ain’t done with you yet!

Today I’ll contrast two ways of looking at the Bible.

 #1. The Bible is God’s divine rule book. Life improves when we study it diligently and find rules to obey. The Bible gives us a life under law.

#2. The Bible is God’s special revelation to us. It leads us into a vital Spirit-led personal encounter with Christ, who gives us wisdom and guidance as we seek to do God’s will. The Bible is a guide to life under grace.

If #1 is true and the Bible is a set of rules, then my ability to follow such a set of rules well is highly dependent on my own will power. If I have strong enough will power, I may do quite well at keeping the rules.  But the more I succeed at this rule keeping, the more I will develop a superior attitude towards those who do not follow the rules as well as I do. Indeed, I may take a perverse enjoyment in comparing my performance to theirs and either rebuking them to their face or secretly treasuring how well I am doing!

Rules are a way of transforming the free grace in Scripture into dead laws.

Look at these differences:

Grace	Law
Express gratitude and thanks in prayer	The longer you spend praying each day, the better
Time spent reading the Bible is a delight	You must have a Bible reading plan and stick to it each day
You please God as you help your fellow man with good deeds	The more ministries you are involved in and the more hours you spend on them, the better.

Often, these rules go beyond what is written in the Bible into a series of prohibitions:

Grace	Law
Wine is good, but do avoid getting drunk	No drinking whatsoever.
Use careful spirit-led discernment in your entertainment choices	Don’t ever watch R-rated movies.

The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel gave a preview of how grace works:       I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26)

Life under law is what leads to a stony heart. Life in grace gives more leeway and much liberty…. but not freedom to do whatever we feel like.

So instead of a blanket prohibition of R-rated movies, we can have an honest prayerful wrestling with which movies to see or not see. The Passion of the Christ was rated R …. is it OK to see it ? 

We move from rules to guidelines. A new guideline I’ve adopted is to not watch a series that has an intimacy coordinator[i]. One result:  I won’t watch the next season of the series Bridgerton.  But I can’t make this into a rule and bind your conscience by saying “You’re in sin” if you watch the next season of it.

Reading the scriptures in a Spirit-led way, we gain patience with others who don’t see it our way. Instead of shoving rules down their throats and binding them to stuff that is not commanded in scripture, we model to them what a life in grace looks like.

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intimacy_coordinator

Paul begins several of his letters by being very complimentary to the recipients….and then later, subjecting them to sharp correction. Does this mean that Paul is simply following the principles for giving a corporate performance review, where you must say positive things before you come forth with a negative?

No, Paul is not trying to “win friends and influence people.” Instead, we are seeing something profound about how Christian love works. Paul’s compliments are not saying what fine upstanding people the recipients are, but rather they express how thrilled he is that that the risen and glorified Christ is alive and at work in their lives.

At the start of Colossians, Paul says:
In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. (Colossians 1:6)

This wonderful truth of Christ-in-them is so powerful that it vastly outweighs their negatives that need correction. Paul’s compliment is honest, even though he is fully aware that many in the congregation are not living up to their calling the way they should be.

So later, Paul turns loose with a sharp rebuke of the Colossians:
 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules (Colossians 2:20). He’s yelling at them for obeying a bunch of bogus rules that have nothing to do with being a Christian.

The same pattern repeats in 1 Corinthians. Early on, Paul says:
I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. (1 Corinthians 1:4)

But then later he has a sharp rebuke:
Your boasting is not good. (1 Corinthians 5:6a) Here, he’s furious at them for bragging about overlooking some raunchy misbehavior within their congregation.

These examples help us as we look at our fellow Christians today. The pastor of my church is not lying when he says we have a healthy church, while yet being aware that some of our people are struggling or even are in rebellion. We can be fully aware of each other’s flaws and faults — yet rejoice that we are all touched by God’s grace. And when we do have to correct each other, we keep in mind that we are all Christ’s people, not adversaries to pummel!

Our rebukes are given with hope that they will guide people to change.  Our flaws are tiny compared to the gloriousness of Christ! Together, we know that God is at work and the gospel is spreading.