Oh foolish Galatians!

I find myself at times becoming a Galatian.  It's such a strong tendency to fall back into the law rather than be free under God's grace.  I feel better about myself when I have a list of to do's, striving to fulfill a list makes me feel accomplished and worthy.  That's what the book of Galatians was about.  Paul got word that the Galatians gave up their freedom in Christ to serve the law again.  Paul was ticked.  Go read it out loud, put some cranky attitude into it cause Paul meant for them to receive it that way.

Each January 1, I choose a verse to focus on for the year.  This year I had chosen Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ, I no longer live but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."  Everything I say and do, I run through the filter of this verse.  It helps me to get my focus off of me, which the world tends to push us to focus on ourselves to much.  Trying to live selfless is hard work, it's the opposite of what the world teaches.

Recently, I was reading this verse out of the New Living Translation (my favorite translation to read in chunks) but ended up planted on verse 21, "I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless.  For if keeping the law could make us right with God then there was no need for Christ to die."  No need for Christ to die went over and over in my mind and I felt convicted.  When I fall into striving, I belittle what Christ has done, even more so, I make it senseless.  Jesus laid down his life so that we would be free of striving, of earning.  I am worthy and completely loved just as I am.  Anything I do for Him is out of my love for Him, not that the do's are "have to's" but that they are "want to's".

Anytime you hear from someone that thinks there are "have to's" and "required to do's" from God, they have missed His grace and have fallen into religion and fallen out of relationship.  Jesus said, "I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it."  Fulfill is the Greek word pleroo, it means to fill , to make full, to accomplish.  Jesus accomplished all that the law required, and when He hung on the cross, He said, "It is Finished".  He completed it all, so that we could be free, free to love Him and free to love others.

The next time you feel you HAVE to do something, do it out of your love for Jesus, not out of someone telling or you feeling you have to.  There are no "have to's" but only "want to's"!  Live free, and freely love, it's that simple when you trust Jesus.

The coffee house pastor

Could you love and worship a God who would forgive Hitler?

Now before you decide to burn me at the stake, please hear me out.

It's a disturbing question isn't it?  Is it easy for you to answer? Really think about it for a bit before you allow your mind to tell your belly to vomit out an answer.

When I thought about this question God became bigger then I had ever imagined.  Every single time I ever heard a preacher preach about evil, Hitler was the equivalent to it.
Evil = Hitler.  I get it, and its true.  What Hitler did is beyond comprehension, purest of evil ever imaginable.  Deserving the worst punishment our minds can conceive, death is not punishment enough, there would have to be suffering.  That's when we began to imagine what hell would be like, and we place him right in the middle of it.

God is a God of justice right?  Whew.  God punishes those who are wicked and unrighteous right?  Whew again.   But...

What makes one not wicked but righteous?  What makes one, in our own sin, right with God?  After all, all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory, his holiness.  Is it that our good deeds hopefully will out weigh our bad deeds, crossing our fingers that it was enough?  Are we praying that God kept really good tabs and didn't lose count?  Or that God in his infinite wisdom will do a great job judging in comparison, person vs. person (boy, would I hope the margins are HUGE being compared to Mother Teresa)?  But...

God is just.  He will punish the unrighteous, he will look at every deed good or bad, AND he will judge by comparison and the comparison is perfection.  The bar is perfection.  Living perfect everyday, every hour, every minute, so how you doing on the bar?  Yeah, me too.  But...

There is one who tops that bar, who lived totally and completely perfect and His name is Jesus.  And because God loved us so much and knew not a single person would measure up, he sent to earth his son, Jesus.  And Jesus being perfect, God offered him to take all the punishment for every single person, for every single one of us.  God who judges and who is completely just did this for all mankind.  The only thing he asks is that we believe that he did it for us.  That by his son taking punishment, his blood covered us completely.  He no longer sees our sin, but God sees his son.

Now here's my point regarding Hitler, one of the most, if not the most evil person that walked the earth...if God in all that He is and all that He can do has the capacity to forgive someone like that, how big and awesome is our God!!

Hear what I'm saying don't get lost in forgiving such a heinous person.  BUT in the capacity in which God can and does forgive!  I couldn't, I wouldn't. And I'm not saying God did.  But what I am saying is that because of Jesus, God could, that God even would!  That. Blows. My. Mind.  He is that awesome, and I am that small.  We love and worship a GOD so much bigger than what our minds can come close to really comprehending but I love trying to!

The coffee house pastor