Thursday, July 24, 2008

Does the reputation of Christ suffer?

Does the reputation of Christ suffer when others see we aren't living a scriptural lifestyle?

“If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and 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. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

When we are scared or troubled by our inadequacies as Spirit-led Christians, maybe we need to hear the same message Paul said to Peter in Antioch here in Galatians 2:14:

“When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?’”

We cannot be in the business of using the law on anyone to arouse them in obeying God. We can rebuke that path to “forming obedience” as a subtle maker of slavery to sin because of fear and submission to a law out of a rejection (in part) of the sufficiency of the cross, that the devil has always used as a scheme to create frustrated believers.

Here's a mystery verse:

2 cor 13:8 "For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.”

Because when we need grace we can still preach grace!

"Do we nullify, then, the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law." rom 3:31

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