“If being better is a good thing, then would it not also be a good thing to keep on trying? Isn’t it better to have a goal and miss it than to have no goal at all? If I have a goal to be better or even perfect, won’t I come closer to perfection than I would if I had no goal?” “Good point. Actually, there is a sense in which our quest for perfection is an indication—albeit in a negative and debilitating way—of something good. The downside is that if you don’t watch it, it will rob you of your freedom. But the upside is something good. When I said I didn’t think I was going to get much better, the operative word there is “I,” not “getting better.” When I said I was giving up, I was talking about my own self-powered efforts at getting better. When I gave up, I think I finally understood Paul’s problem when he said he wanted to do good, but when he tried, he did the very thing he didn’t want to do (Romans 7). When I gave up, I gave up on me and my obsession. The focus of my teaching is grace. I keep that focus because I so desperately need grace. In our broadcast, in my teaching, and in my books, I tell God’s people that, because of Christ, God isn’t angry at them and never will be angry at them. Some say“however, that I am encouraging sin by my teaching. V. Raymond Edman, the former president of Wheaton College, used to say, “We don’t encourage dating at Wheaton… we don’t have to!” Well, I don’t encourage sin in what I teach—I don’t have to! Christians do fine in the sin area without any encouragement. I don’t think I’ve ever met a Christian man or woman who didn’t want to be better than he or she was. They were just going about it the wrong way … trying really hard to be better.” Excerpt From: Brown, Steve. “A Scandalous Freedom.” HOWARD BOOKS, 2004. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright. Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/6lrVw.l
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 01:13:03 +0000
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