I don’t know about you, but I find this comforting. In my life I have sinned too much to ask God to love me based on who I am or what I have done. To be loved just as I am, is a miracle in itself. While I believe I love others with some of the same unconditional love, I must admit I often fail. I want to be like Jesus. I want to offer truly unconditional love. I want to love like Jesus. I guess I just have to stop expecting others to do what is right, to change, to seek to be more like they were created to be, lowering my expectations so I can simply love. To be like Jesus is to love with no standard, no expectations; to live and let live, isn’t it?

We live in a time of grace.

As a matter of fact, dispensational theology would say that this period of history is God’s interaction with humanity under grace alone through the death of Jesus that started around 2000 years ago. Out with the law in with grace, out with the old in with the new. Forget theologians (sorry theologians), the way we act out our faith is our theology whether we tie it to a documented theological construct or just wing it based on the knowledge we have accumulated over the years. Ordinary people don’t care about theories worked out by deep thinkers; we gravitate to the latest idea that brings us comfort. The last 20-30 years has been a time of preaching a version of grace that asks nothing of the believer, before that was a time of preaching legalism that asks everything of the individual to become a believer. Based on who dominated the Christian world of thought, this has moved back and forth for the last 2000 years.

So, what should the Christ follower do?

It’s simple, well actually that’s the problem, it isn’t simple, but we try to make it that way. As I look at what now passes for Christian doctrine and compare it to what passed for doctrine not long ago, I realize that I am struggling with how to define my understanding of Christ following. This is because I, like most of us, try to make it simple, try to create a single option approach to faith, either I am required to do things to follow Christ or I do nothing because I am under grace.

If I am comfortable with my choices and feel I am winning over my darker leanings I like a rules-based faith that asks me to do things to be a follower of Christ. If I am struggling with my predilections, finding that they are winning the war to define me, I like a grace-based faith that says I do not need to change. Simple, right? Wrong!

Only an arrogant fool would believe they have done enough good to be counted as worthy.

Only an ignorant fool would believe they do not need to do anything because grace will make them worthy.

He loves me just the way I am…

Yes, He does, but you love Him back by desiring to be just the way He wants you to be. We don’t need to change to be loved but we do need to be changed if we want to love Him back.

 “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them… “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. John 14:15-21&23-24 (NIV)

I will not attempt to figure out who will be in Heaven but I would suggest that you:

Don’t let grace replace obedience – don’t let obedience replace grace.

You can’t earn it but you can’t steal it either!