Tag Archive - salvation

Relationship or Rule Keeping or Both???

June 19, 2010 in Christianity with 3 Comments

In the field of dispute resolution, we refer to it as framing. Framing is analyzing something by noting everything we can about it. Our understandings of things tend to be based on the frames through which we see them. We call it a “frame of reference.”

And then there is what is called reframing. To reframe something is to see something from a different angle or perspective and then communicate it in that way. Reframing allows us to see things we might not otherwise see.

It is safe to say that perspective is everything.

People, myself included, have tended to look at Christianity in a myriad of different ways. Their thoughts are predicated upon how they’ve framed it. But I’ve noticed I have not always been very comfortable with how others have framed it.

Is Christianity about relationship or rule keeping or both? How you’ve framed it makes all the difference.

In the below YouTube clip, Jason Gray has framed Christianity in a way that may or may not make you uncomfortable. I think I understand what he’s getting at, though. How do you feel about it?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX5qLAbrDLk&feature=channel[/youtube]

His Inexpressible Gift

December 17, 2009 in Christian Life with 0 Comments

Many things of God are inexpressible, but none as much as salvation. Most of us are at a loss for words to describe it. The best we can do is to find something with which to equate it. Paul does this with the Corinthian church (2 Cor. 9:6-15).

We shouldn’t have to guilt people into giving, but when we do, the giver should never respond out of “compulsion” (v. 7). By divine design, giving is the natural response to having been given an “inexpressible gift” (v. 15). As God would see it, those who give for any other reason are simply ungrateful for what they have received. Now that has to be disheartening to the Giver of “every good gift and every perfect gift” (James 1:17).

And God is able to make all grace abound to you…He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God…Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift (vv. 8,10-11, 15).

God’s gift of salvation is “the inexpressible gift” that keeps on giving!