Dr. Os Guinness speaks to Acton Institute, a message titled: The Power of the Gospel No Matter How Dark the Times. This message, though long, is powerful, and is related to a post I published earlier this week titled: Culture Shaping Power of the Church.
Transforming Power of the Gospel
Living Dangerously
One of the dangers of [obedience based Christianity] is that it can lead people to think God owes them a reward for their obedience. Their perspective in life is:
- ‘If I do certain things, I expect God to come through for me’. And when He doesn’t, they think: What’s wrong? Why isn’t He doing something to help me, and what can I do?
- In the opposite direction, some people live in fear that because of their sin, God will punish them…This is a trap.
If we think we earn God’s favor by our obedience or disfavor by our disobedience, we will expect God to come through for us or, at the other extreme, will always be living in fear that ‘the other shoe will eventually drop’.
Brokeness, Contrition, and Repentance = Marks of a Growing Christian
“So Repentance begins with an attitude of brokenness over our sin. But true repentance will be followed by an earnest desire and a sincere effort to put away the sin we are repenting of – to put on the Christlike virtues that we see missing in our lives. These efforts often seem to be characterized by failure as much as by success. But the frequent failures should bring us back to a broken and contrite heart that mourns over our sin. Brokenness, contrition, and repentance are all marks of a growing Christian, a person who is experiencing the work of the Spirit in being transformed gradually more into the image of God’s Son.”
GRACE & PEACE 