My mind is an inextricable tangle of thoughts. Thoughts about grace and salvation and discipline and what it means to be holy.
Food for thought:
- “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” — Jerry Bridges
- “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my rules,” (Ezekiel 36.26-27). It is by grace that I have this opportunity to pursue holiness.
- “for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives…” (Titus 2.11-12). Grace is a tool that the Lord uses for discipline. Salvation and discipline are inseparable. The very same grace that offers me eternity and freedom from sin also carries guidance.
- Grace should compel me to pursue holiness. But how on Earth do I pursue holiness with the truth that God alone is holy and virtuous and all things good? For goodness sake, even Jesus, who is the same nature as God, recognized that he could never grasp equality with the Lord (Philippians 2.5-7) so how am I to attain righteousness?
- Commitment: to resisting sin, to self-control, to being a living sacrifice to the Lord. The commitment of pursuing holiness is to God, not to a “holy lifestyle” or a set of moral values or to feel good about myself.
- Is my intention to please the Lord? If not, I will always be making excuses or exceptions and using grace as a “get out of jail free card.” Instead, grace should prompt obedience.
I realize that this is such a montage of ideas (welcome to my brain). It’s hard to comprehend that grace can both save and discipline but that’s what I’ve been wrestling with this week. Pascal says “faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other” and I think that that is very relevant to uncovering the depths of God’s grace.
All my love, P.
