Monday, June 24, 2013 Simply Accept
the Fact That You Are Accepted
“Now we can serve God, not in the
old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the
Spirit”
Romans 7:6
In his sermon, You Are Accepted, Paul Tillich describes
that wonderful moment when we realize the truth that we are made by right with
God by grace, through faith in Jesus: “at that moment a wave of light breaks
into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: "You are
accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you. Simply
accept the fact that you are accepted." If that happens to us we
experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, we
may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed." (Paul
Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations,
Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, pages160-161)
Miles Stanford would call Tillich’s
observation, the moment when we taste the grace of God. Stanford then notes, “To
taste the grace of God is one thing; to be established in it, and to manifest
it in character, habit and regular life is another." (Miles Stanford, Principles of Spiritual Growth, Back to
the Bible, Lincoln, NE, pages 12-13) Tasting the grace of God, and being
established in the grace of God are both resting on the same foundation: God’s
acceptance of us through faith in Christ Jesus. First, last and always our
relationship with Abba has been made secure by Jesus’ life, death, resurrection
and ascension.
We never, ever, want to lose
sight of our acceptance by God. There will be good days when our thoughts and
actions are noble, when we have been sensitive to the leading of the Holy
Spirit and responded with joyful obedience. On those days we may be tempted to
think God got a pretty good deal when he got us. God would smile and agree.
Yes, He believes He got a good deal when we came home to Him, but the basis of
His thoughts toward us are grounded in His unconditional love and acceptance of
us, not our good deeds.
There will be other days when we
turn a blind eye to the ways of God, when we yield far too easily to the
temptation to gossip, to anger, to self-indulgence. On those days we may be
tempted to think God will reject us, that He will punish us severely for our
sins. In those times, we want to remember that the punishment for our sins has
already been paid in full by Jesus. The magnificent truth of the Gospel is that
God’s acceptance of us, because it is based solely on what Jesus has done for
us, never falters or fades.
This complete and everlasting
acceptance by God shapes the attitude of the child of God living under grace. “Now we can serve God, not in the old way of
obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit”
(Romans 7:6). We refuse to make resolutions and vows because that is to trust
in the flesh, not grace. We expect to be blessed because grace confers
undeserved, unconditional blessing. (Principals
of Spiritual Growth, pages 20-21) This is life in Christ. Why would we want
any other?
Sē’lah
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(Selah is a word that appears in the
Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my
correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about
these things.)
These
meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his
way of life. In addition to this BLOG
they are distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to
this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by
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Publications by Alex M. Knight:
·
Seeking the
Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com.
The Kindle version will follow soon.
·
The second
edition First Think – Then Pray
has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.
·
Meditations on
The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.
