Graciously speaking and living truth in a mixed-up world

This world is full of sin. And shame. And sadness. And brokenness.

And the list goes on. 

God took on flesh and stepped into this world. Jesus came and lived a sinless life as a perfect example and demonstration of the holy love of the Father. Jesus died a sinless death, taking our sin and its consequences upon Himself. The decrees against humanity were nailed to the cross. The brokenness of humanity was offered a cure in the person and work of Jesus Christ. 

The children of God who have been born again are the carriers of His Spirit and His gospel into a world that is a mixed-up mess.

And what we bring to the world is to be the eternal truth of God Himself. 

We are to bring God’s eternal truth by how we live and in what we say. We are to embody the love of Christ and we are to declare the Word of the Lord.

This world that is so topsy-turvy and not even aware of its own lostness not only needs a Savior but also needs the church to share Jesus with them. 

This world doesn’t know what is right or wrong nor the consequences for their behaviors (whether in this life or the next). It is our calling from God Himself to manifest His gospel.

Of course, this must be done with grace. The gospel isn’t the gospel without grace. Jesus would not have been faithful to the character and the will of the Father if He hadn’t lived and died with grace. 

But nonetheless Jesus told the world of sin and we must do the same. We cannot shy away from the warnings that sin is real, it is destructive and yet there is hope for all who have sinned. 

So please, Christians, do not call sin something less than sin. Do not call evil good. Do not change the message of sin, grace, and holiness in order for our message to be more palatable. Let us declare fearlessly the full gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Let us declare what we have received from the Lord. Let us live and declare that all people everywhere need to repent and call on the name of the Lord and be saved. Let us live and declare that immorality and idolatry and contentiousness and selfishness will bring destruction. Let us live and declare that God’s grace and mercy and His Holy Spirit make it possible to be forgiven and delivered from any behavior that cannot be taken in the name of the Lord Jesus. Let us graciously live and declare that whatever the Bible declares to be true must be received and obeyed.

There is sadly a trend in western Christianity these days to ignore the Bible in favor of more culturally “appropriate” designations of sin and holiness and yet the Bible remains quite clear that we cannot keep on sinning and yet call ourselves Christians and neither can Christians claim to know Christ and yet hate a brother. The Bible is completely clear that any type of sexual behavior outside of marriage between one man and one woman is sexual immorality but so is lusting after a person sexually. The Bible is clear that we must have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness and that we must leave behind the world and the old self and pursue the Lord and His righteousness.

Dear reader, please, please, please: hear God’s call to be saved and delivered from your sins. Then seek with all of your might to live a life pleasing to the Lord, allowing Him to sanctify you of all uncleanness and lead you into all of His righteous ways. Then make it your ambition to live out and fearlessly declare with grace His message of love, redemption, and holiness. Stop compromising and letting your sins slide while hammering away on other’s sins. Instead, look at Jesus and look at yourself and then confess the difference. 

If Christians won’t pursue Christ or live holiness and preach holiness, really there is not much reason to call ourselves “Christian”. If we want to keep lying, cheating, stealing, lusting, gossiping, committing sexual immorality, worshiping and serving the gods we pick, treating others as objects or obstacles and deciding that we can do whatever we want, whenever we want and we will just confess it later, we might as well be honest with ourselves that we really don’t want to be a God-honoring Christ-follower, we really just want to have a way to escape the consequences for our behaviors that we really plan on doing anyway.  

Dear reader, please hear this invitation to accept God’s gift of salvation. Dear Christian, please receive this call to pursue holiness. Dear Christian, please fearlessly manifest the gospel in both word and in truth. 

God have mercy, Christ have mercy