Grace uncovered (getting it, and not getting it)

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”  
C S Lewis - The Weight of Glory.

There's an interesting pattern in Paul's letters to fellow believers.

The imperatives always come before the indicatives.

Let me unpack that a little.

Take the book of Romans.

For eleven chapters, Paul speaks out loud and clear on the fact that the only way we can deal with the issue of our unrighteousness is because of the righteousness that has been freely given to us through God's giving of His only Son. Only by having faith in this amazing gift can we be set free to become those who live anew in the life which comes to us from God.

Then, he concludes his letter by offering some guidance on some practical issues regarding how to truly serve one another and the world around us well. The essence of this can be summarized as because we have become his children, we will truly care for each other, so we won't seek to harm others in our living, but show God's goodness to all.

The problems start when we seek to 'do' Christianity the other way around...

You must only teach our manner of ecclesiology (churchianity).

You must keep the sabbath (whenever we deem that to be).

You must abstain from anything we have deemed 'worldly'.

You must distance yourself from the ungodly.
You must be seen to be different (abiding by our codes).

Paul knew the consequences of this reversal only too well - his letters to the Colossians and the Galatians tell us something of the manner of calamity which follows.

It's all too easy today to fall into the indicatives trap - you just have to love people to be 'good'; show them what's (morally) right and wrong and insure that's evident in your behavior and their behavior, and, hey presto, there you have it!

Jesus had seen plenty of that in the 'piety' of His day.

There were many who prescribed rules, but didn't follow them.

The burdens they imposed were great, and the penalties for missing the mark harsh, but their outward shows of otherness and devotion helped no one.

Their manner of behavior only blinded people to what truly mattered.

(See Matthew 23).

 The reality is that true righteousness, viable morality, is far beyond our capacity.

We have to see that true goodness, true beauty, true virtue, are so much bigger and deeper than us. We're the urchin playing in the dirt, not the truly devout and unblemished, upstanding creature we deem ourselves to be.

The reality is that the truly unblemished had to become 'smitten by God and afflicted, pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities' (Isaiah 53: 4 and 5) so that we could truly be delivered from our corruption. If we place our confidence and hope of making it anywhere else than in His giving of Himself for us, we're truly without hope.

Falsehood tells us we're making it by faking it. Truth tells us sin yet remains (1 John 1:18), and that true and total sanctification will only be seen within us come the resurrection (Romans 5:10).

That's why we must always start with the imperatives -

then we can see the gap between ourselves and God, and how that gap could only be filled by God Himself, and that it is that one truth alone that frees us to live well (2 Peter 1:3-8).

Martin Luther spoke of liberating truth being that which is "extra nos" - outside of us.

It's the reality made ours by the one who hung on a cross outside the walls of the city to bring down the wall of division imposed by my sin and yours.

The life, the health, the peace, the joy, that defines life, now and forever, that allows us to even desire something more than our hovels, is found in that one death and resurrection ( 1 Corinthians 15).

So, the next time someone begins to lay out Christianity to you as a whole list of do's and dont's, you know where to point them.