Some thing the Christian faith is about being nice to one another. This is not the case. If it’s being nice then Jesus’ life and death meant nothing. No!
The gospel is about our rebellion against God. Want to prove it? Just try to talk to someone about God’s best for their sexual lives and immediately rebellion raises up. Almost every issue in the news today is about rebellion against sexual behavior – abortion, transgender, fornication (sex outside of marriage), homosexuality, etc… The natural person in the flesh raises up in rebellion.
Tell us what to do and we rebel. And that’s the problem. We have ALL REBELLED against God. Therefore in God’s righteous court of law we stand under his judgment by the law. We have committed crimes and therefore the penalty of death hangs heavy over our heads. A penalty in which there is no bail.
But Jesus came to save us. He paid the price for us. He endured the death penalty for us as a sinless one. If we accept him and his death as the penalty of our sins, we can go free. Not to keep on doing evil, but free to live in righteousness.
Of course we are all in process and even after Jesus, we still sin. The difference is are we trying to live in righteousness? Or do we not care? Do we not remember that repentance is the first part of receiving salvation?
The gospel is not about being nice. It’s about saving us from the penalty of death. Out of that comes a righteous life which includes being nice, but it is not the gospel. It’s not about just living a good life. Even though that is what we strive for. Our good lives are our appreciation to him for rescuing us from death.
To continue in sin is like the woman I read about who spent years working on rescuing a specific child out of sex slavery. And then when that child grew up and had a child of her own, she deliberately sold her own child into slavery even though she had all she needed. She literally, even though rescued from the nightmare herself, took her 6 year old daughter to someone who would pay to have sex with her child. Not from poverty or lack but because the mother wanted the money. If we continue in sin, that’s how we treat God.
We must have more respect and fear of our treatment of Jesus in the gospel. It isn’t condemnation. It’s holiness and righteousness (Lk 1:75) and not treating the sacred act of Jesus’ death like it means nothing.
Heb 10:26 If we deliberately keep on sinning (emphasis mine) after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
