About Me

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Saginaw, Michigan, United States
A sinner who may come before God because of Christ

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Health Care

Well, for the time being, the US has reformed health care. It remains to be seen whether this is a good thing or a bad thing depending on your politics, tax bracket, and ideology/philosophy.

As one who is trying to view life through the lens of Scripture, I struggled a bit on this one. On the one hand we are to help those who are less fortunate, but on the other is it fair to require someone else to involuntarily pay for it?

I have read numerous articles on this subject and a "Biblical" case can be made for both sides. At times in the Old Testament there was required dispersing of property and goods, such as the tithe. In th New Testament Christ turns the focus from law to grace, so pretty much giving becomes an example of conscience.

The more I think about it, this issue could have been avoided had the church been doing part of its calling and helping others. Instead we have relegated this to government to care for the widows, orphans, and poor.

Getting back to what should be our response to the health care debate is to give more of the gifts from God to others, as we rely on the Lord more than relying on government, employers, family, friends or even ourselves.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Discouragement

“Never let us be discouraged with ourselves; it is not when we are conscious of our faults that we are the most wicked: on the contrary, we are less so. We see by a brighter light. And let us remember, for our consolation, that we never perceive our sins till He begin to cure them.” Francois Fenelon (1651-1715)

We are not a race of people happy to have our faults shown to us. It seems to be one of the primary elements of our sin nature. We don't enjoy being wrong. We don't enjoy having faults and I know of very few people who enjoy having someone else point this out.

It was this way from the start. In the first recorded conversation between God and Adam in Genesis 3:8-12, Adam's reaction to God's question if he had about what he had done (eaten from the forbidden tree) was to blame Even and even imply it was God's fault (this woman you gave me).

This is what is often called a "natural" reaction to being confronted with doing wrong. When my kids were little I often wondered when we had adopted those two orphan children named "Aidunno" and "Knotme" were the ones responsible for any broken toy, marks on the walls, dirt on the rug or mess not cleaned up.

But this Christian life calls for us to fess up. Part of our salvation experience is predicated on our open awareness and admission of our sinfulness to the point we could not save ourselves. This is not just a "well no one is perfect" attitude, but one of acute awareness that we are an eternity away from coming even close to meeting the standard that is Christ. If we could, we would not need a Savior.

A Christian Response to a sin being pointed out is not one of blame-shifting or argument or even avoidance, but one of humble acknowledgement, repentance, and asking God, relying upon God, to help you turn from this sin.

Our sins should not be a source of discouragement but one of encouragement because we are see the work of the Father in our lives. This is a source of joy, knowing that our Father, through Christ, is molding us back into that image of Him he originally created us to be.