OMG, we have had the worst stuff. I don't know if it was actually H1N1 or what,but I know it was the foulest illness to come straight out of hell. I'm gonna try to find my groove again. My husband did devotions after dinner today. He chose Ephesians 2:8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast. I have read that verse of course and the UPC realy likes to focus on the next one "created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. " I have heard this belabored to DEATH,usually when the preacher wanted to bully people into door knocking or whatever. But the idea that by grace ye are saved, is a little shocking to my girls. I didn't realize just how much they believed there is a checklist to get to heaven. My husband read the verse and said ok, how are we saved? My seven year old said, Repent and be Baptized..yeah thats true but she had to struggle to accept that my husband is saying "Jesus loves you,through faith your saved" thats it! Thats very different from what she has heard her whole life. I have learned that it doesn't matter what you tell them at home,we homeschool and I have never told them this punative God just waiting on you to screw up stuff...but they believe it. They have absorbed it from their "friends", sunday school teachers ect. These aren't unloving people (mostly) but they are people in bondage to a God who doesn't love them and they have to earn it.
That "lest any man should boast " part OH BOY! I know people who will brag about how holy they are! "Well our family has NEVER done such such ect..we're just so pious and holy and miserable but we have never ever seen a movie" uhmmm yeah okay, you have it then lol. I never thought about it in relation to that verse. Ninety percent of the preaching I have heard for the last 3ish years has been boasting about how holy the preacher is and how great his family is and how much he's been through in his life and how amazing it is that they are so incredibly holy...and faith without works is dead ect. I am so sick of the entire mentality I could just puke.
Step 3: accept that by grace I am saved, and nothing I do adds to that salvation. It won't get me there faster
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I'm hanging out right here with you.
ReplyDeleteI usually do ok with "by grace I am saved" but I get hung up on the fact that nothing I can do, nothing I have done, nothing I could think, say...nothing, can ever change how much God loves me and how freely He's extended His love to me.
Amy, are you speaking of the church you attend now or the Assembly Church you used to attend?
ReplyDeleteI have never heard anything like this in an AOG church. I was refering to the UPC church we have been in for the last several years. We have since left
ReplyDeleteGrace is it! We can't do one single thing to earn what the Love of Our Lives so freely gave. ALL we HAVE to do....is accept what He's handing us. :) Well said, my sista!
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