Salvation

Why does Jesus require all of me?

~ brandon ~ Leave a comment

Previously, we looked briefly at Christ’s standard for becoming His disciple.  To be a Christian, Jesus teaches, one must renounce everything else and follow Christ.  Now, this raises a good question.  Why must I renounce everything to follow Jesus?  Why does Jesus place such a high entrance requirement upon us?  The answer is found in two of Jesus’ Parables.

In Matthew 13:44-46 Jesus describes the Kingdom of Heaven in similar, yet distinct, ways.  On the one hand, the kingdom is like a pearl of great price.  Upon finding a pearl of great value, a merchant sells all he has in order to buy the pearl!  On the other hand the Kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field, for which a man joyfully sells all he has in order to buy the field and secure the treasure.

In both cases the man finds something he values more than all of his possessions.  Therefore, he willingly (and joyfully) sells all to gain that prize he found.  So it is with the kingdom.  Consider the kingdom Jesus speaks of.  It is eternal; it is perfect.  In this kingdom there is justice and righteousness, there is peace and rest.  This kingdom ushers in perfection.  This kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, is life as God intends it to be!

Now, compare this kingdom to our present lives.  Our lives are short and imperfect.  We are beset by injustices, great and small.  We experience little rest and much trouble.  No matter how long we live, we don’t grow toward perfection—we decay toward the grave.  This is what we are called to give up.  We are called to leave behind this life and embrace the life of His Kingdom, learning and allowing Him to transform us, so that we might enjoy the fullness of this Kingdom forever.

Half measures are no good. We cannot stay where we are and enter His kingdom.  Either what Christ offers us is more valuable that everything we already have, or it is not.  If it is not, we are fools to accept His offer.  But, if it is then we must leave behind this life and embrace His kingdom.  Sadly, most of us pay lip service and act as if that should be good enough.  We say, “I’ll follow you Jesus,” but we never actually do.

Faith v. Works

~ brandon ~ Leave a comment

Sarah Cassidy is the sort of no-nonsense, capable woman you might expect to find as headmistress of a ­primary school. But Sarah doesn’t do children, and she doesn’t do husbands either.No. Sarah is 43, single and celibate — and determined to remain so. Each night she fastens a wire chain, known as a cilice, around her upper thigh . . .

. . . ‘It’s an easy way of knowing you’re doing penance,’ says Eileen, who lives in an Opus Dei centre in Ealing, West London. ‘I wear mine above my thigh. If you go swimming, you don’t want to leave a mark from where it has been.

via Why does Opus Dei member Sarah Cassidy attach a cilice to her leg every day? | Mail Online.

Yet,

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
(Ephesians 2:8–10 ESV)

Either we’re saved BY grace FOR good works, or we are saved BY works.  It cannot be both ways.  While these women are extreme examples, perhaps, the reality is that most of us try to ‘do penance.’  We try to make up for our sin by doing good things.  If those good works outweigh the sin, we seem to believe, God will accept us.

But that is not the gospel.  The gospel acknowledges we cannot do enough to make up for our sin.  It demands, not penance, but repentance.  The atoning was done by Christ, once for all.  To think my self-inflicted suffering, or my good works, somehow atones for my sin is to make light of Christ’s work on the cross.