This semester I've been taking a Christian Faith class at 8:00am. It has been tough to keep myself focused on the stuff being taught because of the early "ish" hour and the subject being covered. Our class textbook, "Systematic Theology" by Wayne Grudem, has been another struggle as it weighs a good 5 Lbs (More like 3 but it's really heavy and huge!) and takes a lot of concentration to be able to extract anything memorable from it's pages.
I was reading a chapter yesterday morning on the "Sufficiency of Scripture." I was trying not to skim or be absentminded about what I was reading because it really was pretty boring. Until something caught my eye... "In other cases, continued or even increasing disobedience to these new "sins" will result, together with a false sense of guilt and a resulting alienation from God."
"Huh? What new sins..." I mumbled to myself as I slowly came out of my half-asleep trance. I knew this guy was full of it. But after backtracking and paying attention to what I was reading I kinda had a light bulb moment! Here's the snippets, minus all the "futhermores and therefores," that jumped out at me.
I was reading a chapter yesterday morning on the "Sufficiency of Scripture." I was trying not to skim or be absentminded about what I was reading because it really was pretty boring. Until something caught my eye... "In other cases, continued or even increasing disobedience to these new "sins" will result, together with a false sense of guilt and a resulting alienation from God."
"Huh? What new sins..." I mumbled to myself as I slowly came out of my half-asleep trance. I knew this guy was full of it. But after backtracking and paying attention to what I was reading I kinda had a light bulb moment! Here's the snippets, minus all the "futhermores and therefores," that jumped out at me.
"With regard to the Christian life, the sufficiency of Scripture reminds us that nothing is sin that is not forbidden by Scripture either explicitly or by implication...we are not to add prohibitions to those already stated in Scripture...This is an important principle because there is always the tendency among believers to begin to neglect the regular daily searching of Scripture for guidance and to begin to live by a set of written or unwritten rules (or denominational traditions) concerning what one does or does not do...we add to the list of sins that are prohibited by Scripture itself..."
"The Holy Spirit will not empower obedience to rules that do not have God's approval from Scripture, nor will believers generally find delight in obedience to commands that do not accord with the laws of God written on their hearts. In some cases, Christians may repeatedly and earnestly and plead with God for "victory" over supposed sins that are in fact no sins at all, yet no "victory" will be given, for the attitude or action in question is in fact not a sin and is not displeasing to God. Great discouragement in prayer and frustration in the Christian life generally may be the outcome. "
So what about you, do you often add a list of your own "prohibitions" and beat yourself up for not being able to overcome them? I know I do, then I think I'm not good enough for God and feel immensely guilty and like I can't ever be one of those good Christians. I think we women have a harder time with this then men because we are soooooo critical of ourselves!
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