It's taken a long time, in recent months, of watching and reading; studying and really listening...
I see people I love, people I respect, divided over disagreements about beliefs that should be holding them together, and I wonder what is the purpose in this...
There's always a purpose...
right?
I look back at my upbringing, in Church.
People were different, back then, too.
Some parishioners looked upon me with skepticism and mistrust. Being the kind of kid I was, and the reputation I'd managed to earn, I don't think there is anyone who could blame them.
There were parents who forbade their kids from hanging out with me. That wasn't just in Church...
But then, there were the other ones...
The ones who accepted me with all my flaws and irreprobate foibles. My behavior was not something that " slipped by" them, but was seen more as the symptom...
The symptom of my humanness and symptom of my need for God...
I deserved separation and segregation.
But they loved me anyway. Taken " as I was", not just in words, but in the truest example of Christ...
I'm not saying that those who didn't welcome me like this were "worse" Christians, because in my ruminations ( I love that word!) I have come to see that the love they had for Christ was just as authentic as those who welcomed me, it just was directed a little differently...
Some choose to fail on the side of Judgement, and some choose to fail on the side of Grace...
It has taken a very long time for me to understand this.
I didn't get it for the longest time. I took everything so personal. After an emotional eternity, realization did eventually sink in, though...
It is necessary to have people who uphold the Laws of God and stress the importance of them, just as it is necessary to have people who acknowledge Laws broken, yet also recognize the Grace, the " unearned favor" Jesus gave us, and give it out, not dependent on the recipients goodness, but their indisputable, spiritual need...
In spite of broken laws and willful disobedience.
God is both Judgement and Grace, in perfect balance.
None of us will ever attain that balance. At best, we will find ourselves leaning one direction or the other, in those times that we feel the need to choose...
I think God created us that way,on purpose.
I remember hearing the testimony of one in my Church, Saved at a young age. His sibling told him that he was going to Hell and when he'd asked an elder Christian if she was right, he told him yes, if he didn't repent. I remember how he conveyed that fear of a child, the fear of Hell...
When I was Saved, I was told I would be standing alone, in front of God, to answer for my life. That certainly got my attention and caused great discomfort.
But that was not " the hook" that got me. I'd become used to separation from God, and rightly figured where I would probably end up. What " popped the top" on this deal, for me, was not the fear of Hell, but the promise of an impossible hope.
Both are great reasons to accept Salvation, none better, and neither earned.
God sets the hook exactly how we need it to be set; He meets us at the perfect place, at the perfect time, with the perfect motivation, for who we really are...
In this mix that most of us sometimes feel frustrated by, He makes a strange system of spiritual checks and balances, some leaning toward Judgement and obedience, while others sway toward Grace and Hope...
Grace and Judgement can no more be separated than they can nullify each other. Separate faces of the same Amazing God...
I still may seem near heretical to some, and some may appear almost legalistic to me; it really doesn't matter.
We are as we are meant to be, at this moment.
Works in progress...
All incapable of Gods balance.
Rumination's, adjourned...
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