The Work of God is to Believe

Week after week, the same sermon is preached at church: sin is bad, don't do it. Sin is REALLY bad, stop! Shame on you for even THINKING of sinning! Here are forty things that we think are sin, you should stop doing them.

It makes me so very tired. It doesn't move me. I'm not convinced. I am not buying it. Sure, sin is bad and you shouldn't do it. There are a lot of good things you should do and bad things you shouldn't. But this information--or even the emotions it evokes--are absolutely worthless for producing righteousness. It looks great, but it's just the law, with no power to save or make holy. It has no hold on me--except to kill. And it has little in it to awaken the faith that actually produces righteousness.

I want to hear about our hope! I want to talk about the future return of the King who will bring all things under his government! I want to envision all the justice, beauty, nobility, holiness and peace of that day and feel humbled and challenged by the invitation to have a part in it. It is really real! We will see him and be like him! Those who have this hope will purify themselves.

Those who spend their time looking at their flesh and attempting to deal with the unending results of faithlessness--will they notice when Jesus returns, or will they be too busy "examining themselves" to look up and SEE?