We Never Get Past Faith

The Christian life begins with faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Often we think now we have mastered the basics of the faith now we will move into the deeper substance.

But you see we are very forgetful and the basics of the Christian faith are everything. We do not start the Christian life by faith and continue by works. We start by faith and must continue by faith at every moment.

There is never a time when a Christian can move past the basics. We are weak. But when we are weak in Christ we are strong. If we feel we are strong we deceive ourselves and are weak.

You see all strength is found in God alone. In our weakness we can rest in grace. We were saved by grace and live each moment by grace.

If we do not see this we are blind to the depth of the law. The law is so deep and our weakness of heart so strong we are blind if we do not realize that we need grace each day.

Infinite grace flows from God. It is grace and focusing on the goodness of God by which we grow in sanctification. That is why often teaching on law and how to live well has no impact.

You see we usually know right and wrong very well and it does us little good. It is by looking to God in love that we are changed to be who we were always meant to be.

The Will of God

Often we must live out the will of God in our lives despite the objections of others. There are many voices in our lives.

Many godly people will give us bad advice. It is not that these people are not godly but we as fallen people have a tendency to mindlessly repeat the wisdom we hear in the world or even the church.

Wisdom is specific to a situation. If it was an absolute it would not be wisdom. You see this is the issue with mindlessly repeating wisdom without thinking.

What is frequently true is not always true. There are many unique situations with various dynamics. We should approach situations in life with a desire to think through how to act, not with a preconceived assumption of what the action should be.

One of the great issues in the church is a desire to help without a desire to listen. I have met many godly people who give advice to problems I faced without first trying to understand those problems.

Often the solution given was so trivial you could find it in a million places. They wasted their time attempting to help because they refused to listen.

You see wisdom requires thought and listening. It requires looking at the details of things. If we wish to live well in life we must learn to think biblically and in doing so speak less, think more, listen more, and consider the uniqueness of situations in life as Jesus did.

Good Theology is Lived Theology

It is not uncommon to find that an advanced degree in Theology, even at an institution which holds firm to seeking truth, has the affect of causing the person who has the degree to become a worse Theologian. Usually theological study if it is biblical is helpful but there are multiple issues.

The first is that the ability to interpret scripture is what is important, not the degree. Some young theologians with a masters fall back into Greek to defend positions in arguments. Of course you see they are struggling to explain what the Greek means off the top of their head.

You see they usually cannot understand Greek apart from their hubris that they feel they can. They simply are repeating what they think others have said.

The reality is that the piece of paper which represents the degree easily presents an opportunity for pride. The theologian with his degree is not clearly more skilled in theology than any studied person without a degree.

Of course study in the right way where truth is learned and applied in life with humility is a blessing. But theology is something which is lived. Theology which does not produce good fruit is worthless theology.

You will find many well read people in a church that know more theology than the person with a degree. One is a good theologian if one faithfully understands and applies the word of God.

The degree is only a means to an end. But it has no necessary relation between the degree and the quality of one's theology. You see someone with a degree who cannot set aside their pride or does not submit the teaching of scripture when they are wrong is a poor theologian.

We are very often in the wrong when we read the bible and need to admit to God we are wrong. Humility is the mark of a good theologian. A systematic study at a university is only a means to an end. The truth of if the study was of use will be determined by the ability of the studier to faithfully explain and live out their faith.

Wisdom

In life ideally we should live by wisdom. You see a lot of the world and even a lot of the church live simply by rules in an unthinking way.

It does not matter if this or that makes sense because the rule is as it is. You see it goes further, it is not simply that the rule is being upheld because it is the current rule.

If this were simply the issue people could look and see the rule has an issue. But people often won't question the rule.

And that is the issue: the rules are unchangeable because we cannot think otherwise and brokenness is unchangeable because broken rules cannot be changed.

It is all absolute. Thought is gone and there is no rational behind action.

Action is easy. It is based upon unthinking principles. It is no wonder the great mess in the world and church. You see so much of life goes on with so little thought.

In the end thinking protects and guards mankind rather than hinders mankind. We would do better as a race if we were all thoughtful rather than living blindly and unquestioningly.

But often we live by rules which are so absolute they allow no wisdom. And that is why the Bible's call to wisdom is important and counter cultural.

Divided Man

Walt Whitman once said, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself."

This saying has a lot of importance. You see as Christians we can often learn many things from those outside the church.

The bible always tells man that he is a sinner. He has a nature of sin and a new nature birthed by grace.

You see there is an inner conflict within the Christian. He is a divided man.

Before he was a Christian he had no division but he has made progress by being divided. You see he now has part of the truth within him and he is growing in the right direction.

But he is a divided man who will often fall and say things he should not say. You see to be a Christian is to live in contradiction between what we know is right and what we often say and do.

Really as a Christian we should admit we live in contradiction. Maybe we need to address the contradiction more completely at times and take back what we have said at times.

But really there is a great usefulness in simply admitting we do not have it all together. We are saved by faith. We do not have to have it all together.

It is messier at times to claim we have it all together than to admit the truth. You see if your lives are a mess and a confusing one at that it does not improve us to lie to ourselves and others about the fact.