Thought For The Day

[kerravonsen]

Sin is like a broken promise. No matter how many promises you keep, they can't mend the broken one.

Comments

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

It's not a bad analogy, but I have to say: if I didn't believe that Christ can redeem anything, i.e. mend all broken promises, I would despair of life entirely... because as a human I have many limits and am utterly incapable of keeping all promises, or of being perfect.

[kerravonsen]

Which is why the Law condemns, and Grace redeems. Because broken promises can't be mended, but they can be forgiven.

I am wrestling with how to explain the difference between merit and worth, following on from discussions in this post. Many Christians confuse the two, and I want to clarify the thinking about it. It is true that good deeds have no merit - that is, they do not give you merit for doing them, they don't give you "Brownie Points", they aren't coin with which to pay back the debt that sin puts you in. (Which is, IMHO, why using the metaphor of "debt" for sin has some misleading limitations.) Many Christians then conclude that good deeds therefore have no worth, no intrinsic value. Or worse, that they have no worth unless they're done by Christians. That is going to the other extreme, which is just as much in error as the idea that one could earn one's way to Heaven.

It's more as if good deeds and bad deeds are orthogonal to each other; that it isn't the case that there's an axis with "really super good" at one end, "neutral" in the middle and "really super bad" at the other end; more as if they were on completely different axes altogether, like Real and Imaginary numbers. Or as if one were oil and the other were water. (Which would make Christ's blood detergent... oh dear.)

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Because broken promises can't be mended, but they can be forgiven.

And my problem here is that if the power of God and his grace is limited to forgiveness (I know, that's not very limited at all!), then I'm not sure what the point is. I've lived too much of my life in fear of making mistakes and hurting other people--the only way I've found not to be crippled by such thinking is to trust that God can bring good out of the worst mistakes... that he not only can forgive us, but heal us and heal others. Redeem, not just forgive.

I love your ponderings on merit vs. worth. I'd be interested in hearing more about it--I've struggled with what "worth" and "worthy" mean in just these contexts, but hadn't managed to get to the point where I was using two different terms for the two different views on what makes something "worthwhile."

Or as if one were oil and the other were water. (Which would make Christ's blood detergent... oh dear.)

Is it wrong that I kind of love this as an analogy? :)

[kerravonsen]

And my problem here is that if the power of God and his grace is limited to forgiveness (I know, that's not very limited at all!), then I'm not sure what the point is. I've lived too much of my life in fear of making mistakes and hurting other people--the only way I've found not to be crippled by such thinking is to trust that God can bring good out of the worst mistakes... that he not only can forgive us, but heal us and heal others. Redeem, not just forgive.

And thus we run into the limitations of analogies!

I love your ponderings on merit vs. worth. I'd be interested in hearing more about it

8-)
I have more pondering to do first...

Or as if one were oil and the other were water. (Which would make Christ's blood detergent... oh dear.)

Is it wrong that I kind of love this as an analogy? :)

(grin) Well, it would make a good Childrens' Talk!

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Yes, apologies for hijacking your analogy along lines it isn't meant to address. :) (My own brain and heart have been full of questions as to the exact nature of salvation, this year.)