Lost in Faith

Hard to think about this passage this morning without letting last night’s group inform me. I was once again amazed at the visceral confusion of earning and becoming an heir.

This is the key verse in earner to heir. vs. 5 He rescued us from the old way of life spoken of in the preceding verse. If you go to Biblegateway.com and read this in the Young’s Literal translation you’ll see how Paul makes his point. Greek is an inflected language, meaning the parts of speech change their spelling to indicate whether they are subject, object, etc. Word order is not really important since you know from spelling where things fit. But word order is important for emphasis. Generally the further up in a sentence the more emphasis that is being place. Notice the word order in the 5th verse (verse breaks are not in the original text!)

4 and when the kindness and the love to men of God our Saviour did appear
5(not by works that [are] in righteousness that we did but according to His kindness,) He did save us, through a bathing of regeneration, and a renewing of the Holy Spirit,
6which He poured upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour,
7that having been declared righteous by His grace, heirs we may become according to the hope of life age-during.

Paul put the ‘not by works of righteousness’ in front of ‘he saved us’. He is slamming his fist on the desk to emphasize the impossibility of human effort toward righteousness being a player in our reconnection with God.

Back to last night, I was surprised at the insistence that “good works” had something to do with reconnecting with God. After robust discussion and clear explanation from the Bible about our inability to pay the debt back there was still a desire to see that God only let “good” people into heaven.

If that is the case, we are all screwed! It is only the righteousness of Jesus Christ, imputed/accounted to us that allow us to be called Children of God.

Now with that said my heart being stunned by this irrational love that my heavenly father freely gives to me, I can’t do anything with my life but serve him. His love creates a mysterious transaction in my soul. A transactions that makes serve this father the pleasure of my life. I can’t thank of anything else I would want to do.

So my service is not a cause but an effect of the love of the father. Here in is love not that we loved him but that he loved us. His love is catalytic in my journey!

Father, you never cease to amaze, stun, captivate, overwhelm me. I am more deeply moved and motivated by this tour through J1 than I have been in a long time.

Thank you doesn’t seem enough! But you are enough.