Posted on by Abe Austin

A Loving Relationship with Christ- Missing Love

Discovering Jesus’s Love)

I have already discussed how Christians that defend sinful habits by an appeal to the love of Jesus Christ are incorrectly conflating being loved with being saved. But actually, I think there is an even more fundamental confusion than that. When they say, “well Jesus loves me anyway,” I suspect that most of them don’t actually believe that.

My reason for this is personal experience. For much of my life I was a slave to a sinful addiction, and through it all I would have adamantly insisted that Jesus loved me. But it was not an excess of Jesus’s love that gave me license to do evil, it was a dearth of it. For while I truly believed in Jesus’s love in my head, I did not feel it whatsoever in my heart.

Indeed, it was as I managed to break down my walls and actually start feeling his love that my behavior became more holy also. I could never feel the beautiful reality of his love and continue living in sin. That’s not say that I’m perfect, to say that I don’t still do wrong things from time to time, but I can say that I don’t live in sin like how I used to. What was once a way of life are now only slips were, and it was his love was what made that change possible.

A Recurring Pattern)

And I’ve been to enough 12-step meetings to know that this isn’t only true for me. One of the most common refrains I’ve heard in these stories is a severing of the connection to the love of Christ, and the resultant increase in sin. I’ve heard many of these men say something like, “I knew that Jesus loved everybody in the world…just maybe not me.”

For many people, sin is used as a drug to try and dull the sense of being fundamentally unlovable. They do what they do from a starvation of love, not an excess of it. Those that are truly secure in Christ’s love are freed from the spiritual pain that leads to wrongdoing. Those that are truly secure in Christ’s love, and know that he died for their sins, feel less compulsion to hurt him, not more.

I understand why people who are not ready to let go of their sins would look for a divine excuse to not change their ways. I think invoking the love of Christ is not only inaccurate, though, I think it is tragic, because admitting that they don’t feel any love is one and the same as hard as admitting that they’re not doing okay. They have my sympathy, not by disdain, but sometimes the kindest thing is to speak the hard truths that sting…and then heal.

Posted on by Abe Austin

False Moral Dilemmas- Conclusion

Summary)

In this series I explored the world’s strange fascination with moral dilemmas, noted how many of them are unbelievable and contrived, and how even the ones with a historical precedent always had a moral option, even if you have to look outside the box to find it. Another key point that I mentioned was the importance of recognizing disengagement as an option. If you are presented options A and B, and both would compromise your conscience, you could always just do nothing at all.

I also pointed out how both outside-the-box thinking and moral inaction are demonstrated in the life of Jesus. It is from him that we see that the perfect path, with no moral compromise, is actually possible.

At least, it is possible in theory. I also acknowledged that each of us will, of course, compromise ourselves at some point, but that we need to accept and confess that failure, not try to sweep it under the rug by saying we had no choice but to do wrong. We can both have grace for our poor choices while admitting that they were, indeed, poor choices.

The Uncomfortable Truth)

Accepting these truths can be uncomfortable as they leave us no way to hide from the reality of difficult moral choices. Believing that there is no good choice is the easier option, as it justifies us in shrinking from painful consequences. Once we accept that there is always a good path, then we can no longer betray God in ignorance. Then, any time that we do something to get what we want or to avoid pain, we do it with eyes wide open, and we know that we will have to account for it someday.

It is, therefore, both a blessing and a burden to know that choosing good is always an option. That knowledge might condemn us to dissatisfaction or pain in the short term, but it is also the path to ultimate redemption.

Posted on by Abe Austin

True Forgiveness

True forgiveness isn’t about trying to minimize the wrongs of others, or to trying to justify their flagrant offenses away.

True forgiveness is knowing that what the other person did is objectively condemnable and that you would be absolutely within your rights to demand justice, but turning it all over to God anyway. It is letting God be the judge, letting Him choose justice or mercy according to His will.

True forgiveness is not excusing, it is releasing.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 4:10-12

10 And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

11 And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?

12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.

Thus far Moses had blamed external factors for his hesitancy, insisting that the people wouldn’t believe him, that they would require proof of his divine commission, that they would require Moses to tell them the name of the Lord. God had addressed each of these concerns, but now Moses moved to another excuse. This one was at least more honest in that it was directed at Moses’s inner adequacy, rather than trying to put the blame on others. Moses claimed he was not eloquent of speech. Some have wondered if this means he had a speech impediment, but that is merely conjecture. Perhaps he did, or perhaps he simply struggled to find the right way to say things.

In either case, God delivered a resounding rebuke to Moses. Who made man’s mouth?! Who made the dumb? The deaf? The seeing? The blind? God made Moses to begin with, so if there ware any difficulties of speech lingering in him, God could remake him without those flaws.

Also, Moses was missing the point. Moses was seeing himself as the one who had to come up with a convincing enough argument to get the Israelites to follow him, and a compelling enough demand to get Pharaoh to let the people go. But God’s plan never was for Moses to do this by his own power or intelligence. Moses was correct that he would be totally inadequate to do this on his own, but Moses wasn’t supposed to do this one his own. Moses wasn’t to speak his own words; he was to speak God’s words. Moses wasn’t to be the leader; he was just to be the spokesperson. God explained all of this in verse 12. “I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.” All Moses had to do was present himself and act as directed!