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Mar 16 2008

The Problem with Acceptance

Written by Paul Anderson-Walsh

Sunday, 16 March 2008

The Problem with Acceptance , by Jaymz Sparrow

I find myself in a new place. There was so much to think about before, but now I find myself with only one real question…what now? When we were dealing with religion it was obvious what needed to be done. We had only to concern ourselves with the business of making ourselves acceptable in the sight of God and man (but it seems mostly man). This meant that Sunday was the day to draw a picture of the perfect lives that we were enjoying. We had to make sure that everyone believed that we were walking in a way which was pleasing to God, we therefore had no problems, we were thankful in every situation because we were walking by faith. You see, if we were receiving the blessings of God then we were obviously living in an acceptable way to God, because God rewards those who adhere to his law and achieve his (unachievable) standard. We were victorious over the devil, stamping him under our feet. We were assured of financial security because we were faithful in bringing the whole tithe into the store house. So why was there such a nagging feeling that there was something wrong? Why had so many questioned the truth of what was being delivered at church for so long? We didn’t have the strength or ability to live the expected Christian life. So instead we tried so hard to create the illusion of contentment; because to admit that we were unfulfilled and burnt out meant that we were finding fault with the life that church was offering. We would be questioning the gospel being preached, and to question the gospel being preached brings us to an inevitable conclusion…..what is the Good News of Jesus Christ?

It was this question that led many of us from our respective places of worship to look for an answer in grace. Here in Grace Land we heard strange and seemingly impossible things about who we are and who God is. Suddenly we found ourselves facing a new and totally ridiculous possibility, that God accepts us exactly as we are? How could this be so? We had never considered how much of our religious behaviour had been in vain, but in the light of Calvary, how could it be anything but vanity? We had spent so long believing in a Jesus plus gospel, ignoring the scriptures that tell us something very different indeed. The book of Hebrews tells us without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins, so does that mean that it’s because of Jesus’ death at Calvary that our sins are forgiven? The idea that our sins are forgiven, without us asking God to forgive them, what about 1 John: 9? If that is true then surely any attempt on our part to make ourselves more acceptable in the sight of God is a total waste of time, and in fact insults His graceful offering of His one and only begotten son. Had we really been saying for so long that Jesus didn’t do enough at the cross?

Then would come a revelation of God Himself! The book of 1 John 4:8 introduces us to a revolutionary concept of God…..that God is love. Of course we knew this statement was in scripture, but had we ever considered what this meant? Did we even know what this love was? The New Testament uses three different words for love:

i)    phileo
ii)    eros
iii)    agape

We will briefly look at just two of these love states. The reality is that we never really understood who God is! To say that God is love means that who you understand God to be is what you understand love to be. The kind of love experienced by most of us is known as Eros. This is the natural kind of love experienced by fallen man. This kind of love is centred on our selves; Eros asks what you can do for me. Eros looks to please itself in all situations; it seeks to get rather than to give. To attribute this kind of love to be the nature of God seems to throw the scriptures into chaos, to think that God is more concerned with what we can do for him, instead of what he has already done for us. This view of God leads us to see Him as angry and uncaring, in some way as one who needs to be appeased. This does not seem to be the God who is described in the gospels and particularly in the epistles of Paul and John, so what does John mean when he says God is love? John is describing God in terms of Agape love, and this is completely opposite to Eros love. Agape asks not what you can do for me, but what can I do for you? It seeks to give the very best it can, and with no real thought of it’s self. This vision of God seems to make sense of so much that was senseless and it also bring us back to an inevitable conclusion……if God is not concerned with what I can do for him, only on what he can do for me, does that mean that he accepts me not on what I am doing, but instead because of who He is?

The real question is this: Can we accept Him as He is? What is it that makes it so hard for us to take these truths about God and simply accept them? This is the trouble with acceptance! We have to get over ourselves. The notion that I am not the source of my own salvation is such a hard thing to accept. Even though we professed Jesus to be our saviour, we never seemed to be content to let Him have the job we asked Him to perform. We got stuck in the mire of performing to please God. We tripped over the stumbling block of the law, like the children of Israel. Somewhere between the book of acts and today we have got lost in the maze of religion, believing that the best we can look forward to is the idea that Jesus is going to come one day and set us free. We have bought into the idea that the messiah will one day come, and for all our Christian rhetoric have missed the point that he has already come and set us free! We have been living in a prison of the mind.

So we now find ourselves back at the place of asking…..what now? If we truly have come to a place where we know that God has accepted us, not by religious effort, not by praying harder or by tithing more, but because of God’s own nature of agape love, then what now? If we were not created to earn God’s love then why were we created? The reason God said let us make man in our own image was so that we could reflect his glory. He made us so that you could see what God (who is spirit) was like. He made us to be like Him. So in asking what we shall do now, we are going to have to ask ourselves: What does God do? God does only what His nature allows Him to do….love. This is where we should find ourselves, in the position of God, loving, taking the place of others in their place of need. God can only work effectively where there is need, that’s why Jesus said he did not come to call the righteous, but the unrighteous. Only those who are conscious of their need for a saviour will call upon the name of the Lord, and will only be aware of their need of a saviour when they have come to the end of their belief that in some way they can save themselves. So where we can see a need for Jesus we should be there in the midst. God said to Moses:

You shall be as God to Aaron (Ex 4:16)

Not motivated by how we will benefit from any given situation, we as the light of the world should be shining in the midst of the darkness. David wrote in the 23rd Psalm:

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil!

The light of the world moving through the valley of the shadow of death becomes a guiding light by that which people may find their way unto the Father. Jesus said no man may come to the Father but by me, this is the same great commission that Jesus gave to the twelve. We preach Christ and Christ crucified, nothing more need be added, we must simply accept and abide in Christ, and as we begin to accept the truth of the gospel, the glory of Christ will begin to radiate from us, as He operates through us and as us, glorifying His name in all the earth. We are now one with Him in Spirit, and that is the same spirit that unites us all as sons of God. Though we are many we are one body, because we all share in one bread. The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead gives life to our mortal bodies, and it is that spirit of agape that gives itself for the salvation of others. This is our calling, our destiny, to be the image of the invisible God.

Perhaps we can say it like this:

Grace….the final frontier. We are the voyagers on the ark of the New Covenant. It’s eternal mission, to eek out new life, to overthrow civilisation. To boldly go where only One Man has gone before.

Agape <><