I just have to pass this along… In his Internet Monk blog, Michael Spencer linked to this brief rework of Tim Keller’s discussion of Gospel vs Religion. The bottom line of this is” “The gospel is ‘I am accepted through Christ, therefore I obey’ while every other religion operates on the principle of ‘I obey, therefore I am accepted.’”
Check this out; then for more on the radical nature a of Gospel-focused life, read Keller’s Centrality of the Gospel which begins, “the Christian life is a process of renewing every dimension of our life– spiritual, psychological, corporate, social– by thinking, hoping, and living out the “lines” or ramifications of the gospel. The gospel is to be applied to every area of thinking, feeling, relating, working, and behaving.”
My friend Britt introduced me to Keller’s Gospel-focused message a few months ago, and it has been part of what God is up to in renewing me. When I see my life as a loving and joyful response to what Jesus has done for me and is doing in me, I am truly living — living in light of the Gospel.
This morning in our band of brothers, the guys were talking about our tendency to work hard at re-writing the script of our lives. I’ve spent so much effort trying to edit my life that, for years I failed to really live it. But, when I see God and his plans for me as really really good, I can get beyond the “what-ifs” and be satisfied with the plot because I know and trust the writer.
>Why is it easier for me to study than to reflect? I intend to do some reflective writing about my life and end up looking up some tangential topic and writing about that. I intend to spend some time meditating on a passage in the Bible, and end up doing a word study of one of the phrases. I intend to be, and I end up do-ing. I think that’s it. It’s much easier for me to do something instead of just being still. My default setting is behaving as a human doing rather than as a human being. At work, having a bias for action has served me well. It helps me to keep the end in mind, to produce, to follow through, to get ‘er done. It’s a task focus, and much of my work-life is all about the tasks. But work life and LIFE are not the same; life is more than just doing “one damn thing after another.” (Elbert Hubbard)
Human life is about living as a human, about being human,about living as one made in the image of God. The highest name for God in the Bible is YHWH – usually written as LORD in English; it’s most basic translation is “I am.” God is being, eternal existence, ultimate reality … life. As my friend Mark says, Jesus didn’t say, “I’ll show you the way. I’ll point to the truth. I’ll model a good life for you.” Instead, Jesus declared, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life.” In his essence, Jesus is life.
See! What did I tell you?! … My ADD– A Desire to Do — kicks in and I’m off on a tangent about the nature of God. R e l a x … B r e a t h e … Turn back to the thought at hand. (more…)