Joel at Grace Roots has a series of posts on the practical outworking of grace. Here is a nice little snippet:
I’ve said plenty of times that I’m very opposed to the idea that the Christian life is a matter of living by rules, principles, methods, etc. Life in Christ is a matter of His life in us, working in us and through us and out of us. It’s not about us studying principles to keep us and guide us. It’s not about becoming better people, but rather it’s about living from the new creations that we already are, trusting in Christ’s life in us to animate us...
And so in saying all of this, I want to be absolutely clear that I’m not saying that our life in Christ is a matter of striving to apply godly principles to our lives. It’s not a matter of preaching a new set of principles every week and then going out and trying to make them work.
What I am saying is that as we get more and more rooted and grounded and established in grace and in our identity in Christ, God can and does speak to us in all kinds of ways, through internal and external means, and part of that includes encouraging, exhorting and admonishing us through each other.
The Apostle Paul did a whole lot of this in his epistles. It can be a very grace-full thing to speak these things to one another. Again, it doesn’t make us “better people” and it doesn’t make us any closer to God. It simply helps to bring out the life of Christ.
And, in the second post:
I don’t believe it’s a matter of us going around trying to find principles to follow and I also don’t believe it’s a matter of a preacher coming up with a new set of generic principles to preach each week. I think it’s more a matter of, in the normal course of life, God’s children communicating with one another, and in the proper times and seasons speaking words to one another that come from our own life experiences and from biblical truth that fit the given circumstances, and that will help us to grow in grace and in the living out of who we truly already are in Christ.
<idle musing>
When we were visiting some friends in Minnesota last fall, one of them summed it up very nicely by saying, “So, what the Bible is doing is showing us what the grace-filled life looks like, not telling to do this in order to get grace.” Very insightful, I think.
</idle musing>
Somehow I missed this post until this weekend; it is from way back on February 14. Alan Knox, quoting from The Christian Century, says:
Every congregation has its supply of believers who would love nothing more than to cultivate their own private spirituality by taking home that beloved hymn refrain or sermon quip to benefit their personal life. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this private eagerness for spiritual nurture. But as soon as personal edification becomes the primary focus for "attending" church, individualism begins to infect the health of the congregation and the possibility of a grander sense of true community.
<idle musing>
I am realizing more and more each day that we are called to be a community—a community of faith, reflecting the kingdom of God, bearing witness to the power of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives.
</idle musing>
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