A while back I wondered if I was a pushy, judgmental legalist. I had been involved in a conversation with someone who said, “You’re just hard to read. Honestly, I feel like, what am I going to do wrong next when I’m around you.”
Ouch.
On the other hand, part of me was glad to know that he was feeling convicted, at least in part, when around me.
The discussion revolved around a behavior that I thought was dangerous to his spiritual health. When he didn’t respond too well to it I sought some wisdom from a friend of mine and loved what he had to say.
He reminded me that we respond with a life obedient to Jesus not because we have to, but because we want to. We are not bound in the legalities of the law that we must follow in order to achieve salvation but rather we are bound by the love of Christ so amazingly great that we have no choice but to want to please Him. Christianity is not a set of rules to follow and live up to, it’s joy-filled obedience to the only One worthy of our allegiance.
2 Corinthians 5 speaks of the proper anticipation of things to come while living in this world for a short time. Some highlights:
Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (8-9) For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. (14-15)
Whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him….For the love of Christ controls us…that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
It changes your attitude, for certain!
- It’s Sunday so I must go maintain my obligation to go to church to…It’s Sunday and I am joyfully privileged to be able to worship in God’s house.
- I can’t possibly keep myself from doing all the things that the world does, there’s too much pressure to…My satisfaction is found in what God asks me to do, not in the fear and approval of man.
- I’ll never measure up or be as good as so and so as a Christian to….God has measured Himself and poured Himself out for me through Jesus, I am worth dying for.
