Great News … In Balance
So What Shall We Say Then…. Shall We Keep On Sinning So That Grace May Increase? Romans 6:1
The Gospel is great news. Period. Regardless if you believe that — or not — the Gospel is probably the one set of facts in history that has had the most lasting and profound impact on humanity for over 2000 years. It has done more to shape how the human race sees the universe than any other truth ever has.
At the core of this good news (Gospel) is grace – a concept that has been applied to us by God so that we have the opportunity to have a relationship with God our creator even though we, in ourselves, have no rights or privileges that make that automatic.
The Gospel says that God provided a way for us to have that relationship with Him through faith and belief in one core fact — that even though we deserve eternal separation (death) from God because of our sins, God sent Christ to die in our place. If we believe this, God will welcome and actually desires to have a relationship with us.
God didn’t have to set things up that way (after all His is God and can do what he wants) but, He set the universe up this way simply because He is gracious. He did this just because He wanted to, just because He loved humanity.
As a person who recognizes God and who has faith (belief) that the Gospel is true, I get to live with grace every moment of every day. It’s grace that gives me assurance that God cares about me and that I will never live in a universe where God has turned his back on me. That in itself is important … every single day of my life.
And that’s where the verse above comes in. In our lives, we want to increase goodness. If something is good, we try to get more of it as a way of making our lives (and hopefully the world around us) better. “More good… better place” we reason.
We want more of things like grace and we strive to get more of it every day. We may even logically conclude (as the people who read the original letter to the Romans might have) that if God is gracious, dispensing grace to cover (or wipe out) our sins, then the more we sin (do what we think is right), the more grace we will receive and the more grace we receive, the better off we are. Pour it on out! We may even think that by receiving Grace, we are helping God be God.
Well.. that’s a bit off kilter.
You see, we live is a universe created by a God that expects us to live in balance. The Grace / Sin fact applies but so do many other facts. One of those facts is that one of our purposes here on earth is to take part in restoring the Shalom (peace) that existed at the time that earth was created.
That means that we can’t act however we want to or act in a way that in in conflict with God’s purpose for us then expect God to dispense his grace like some cosmic vending machine. We are governed by one side of a scale that wants us to live with God, in accordance with His purposes. As we do this, we will have the opportunity to experience His grace … even though we mess things up more often than we should.
I started noodling on this balance because a friend of mine recently wrote “I have confidence that God delights in me, all the time and without exception. His smile towards me doesn’t waver.” I have difficulty with this statement taken as it is. Yes it’s true but it’s true only as part of a larger picture.
I don’t believe that my friend was saying “do what you want, when you want and God will delight in you” (Romans 6:1) and I understand that even if we mess up (which we will) that if you live under grace, God will not turn His back on you.
However, I have to believe that God does indeed waver a bit if I am proceeding down a path that is in conflict with Shalom. Given that fact and the fact that I live under Grace, I do believe if I stray from God’s purposes (get out of balance), that because of Grace, God is not going to turn His back but will encourage me and teach me to move back toward Shalom (balance). He does this with gentle correction simply because He love me and is gracious.
Balance — on one side, working to restore Shalom. On the other side God’s unconditional love and Grace.