The Good News Just Gets Better!

This is the Good News, that Jesus died to save sinners like you and me, and He can do that even if we live a deplorable life, and ask for forgiveness on our deathbed!  Not a single one of the Disciplines I have discussed so far, nor any that will be presented in the next blogs, is necessary to earn the love and forgiveness of God!  What then is the point of the Disciplines of the Spirit-led Life?  One may legitimately ask, “If I can live like I want and get forgiven at the last minute, why not just do that?”

First, remember, God is our Father, the ultimate Father against which the whole concept of biological fatherhood is based.  Jesus asked His followers on one occasion, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11).  A father wants what is good for his children, if he reflects anything of the Fatherhood of God.

So it is important to keep this relationship in mind when we discuss the Disciplines of the Spirit-led Life.  None of us can effectively live out these disciplines by our own initiative.  Oh, we can do some of them religiously, like the Pharisees of old.  We can make up long lists of rules and regulations, and measure each other for our “spirituality” by how many of the rules we avoid breaking any given day.  However, this is not the spiritual life our Father wants to embed in our hearts.  The Spirit-led life is just that – a life which is led by His Spirit, reflecting the life of Jesus, the self-giving love of the Creator, and the holiness of the Almighty God.

Consider a daddy who would let his son indulge in drugs or illicit sex or theft or murder, and simply pat him on the back and say, “Oh, I love you, son, so it does not matter what you do.”  We would report such an evil dad to Child Protective Services and try to get the kid out of that terrible situation!  A good dad will try to train his child in what is best for his child.  In the same way, our Father wants what is best for us and He knows that the Spirit-led life is what will most effectively and completely satisfy His children.

Yes, you can live the life of a beggar and a bum and still go to Heaven.  But that will hurt Father’s heart deeply, because He knows how beggars and bums wind up in life . . . destitute, hungry, homeless, purposeless, empty and in pain.  What dad would want that for his child?  Yes, Heaven will remove all the hurts, both of what you have suffered here on earth, and the hurts you have caused others, but why wait!?  Essentially, you can begin enjoying Heaven HERE and NOW!  And that is what a good Father wants for His children!

Second, there is a great risk involved in living a selfish ego-centered life.  God will never abandon His children, but consider if a child refused to eat the good food a dad offered, or to take medicine that dad bought to heal disease, or to practice safe guidelines a dad sets about playing in the street.  Although He loves us as perfectly as a Father can love, He will not violate our free will.  He will allow us to choose what we choose, even if it is bad for us.

This is not evil on His part, as some suggest: “If God really loved us, would He not close the door to hell, and force everyone into Heaven?”  This expresses a lack of understanding of free will and Heaven and hell.  Forced into Heaven is not Heaven.  As much as He loves us, He created us such that He cannot make us Heavenly any more than He can make water dry.  He cannot do that which is inherently absurd, and forcing a wayward child into Heaven is just that absurd.  We must come of our own choice, of our free will, of our trust that He really does love us and want what is best for us.

If a child then detests Father’s wishes, He will not, cannot, change the child’s mind against its choosing.  If we choose to live a self-centered life, there is risk that we can starve our spiritual life to death; we can die of sin’s spiritual disease in our souls; we can play in the street, but we may die of an accident. Although against Father’s wishes and in spite of His love and holiness, as it breaks His heart He will release us to our choices.

Lastly is the risk of timeliness of our death.  “We are not meant to know the future, and it’s the grace of God that we don’t.” (Steve Elliott)  No one has a guarantee of tomorrow.  Our life is like a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow (James 4:14).  It is like grass that one day is green and by evening is dry and withered (Psalm 90:3-6).  But The God Who Is There gives us this grace: though He knows the number of our days, He hides this knowledge from us, to develop in us the best – the Spirit-led life.  He knows that if we knew the day of our deaths, we would live any way we chose until the last day; then we would try to make amends and sneak into Heaven.

And we would all enter Heaven worn and beaten by the destitution, hunger, homelessness, purposelessness, emptiness and pain of a life lived without the guidance of His Holy Spirit; without the fruit of the Spirit having been nurtured and grown in us.  What dad would want such a miserable existence for his child?  Do you think our Heavenly Father would love you so little?   So again, Jesus asks, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11).

So the Good News Just Gets Better!  Now onto more Disciplines of the Spirit-led Life, such as Simplicity, March 16, 2017!