Barneyisfat

One of the biggest problems people have with my liberal viewpoints in the Christian faith is they are afraid I'm going to be soft on sin. I rebuke that. It just isn't true (* Michael erases his "softon/ Bill Clinton" joke because it crossed the line of decency) I confronted a friend today about a sin issue in his life. I have really felt compelled to talk to him about it. See, the problem was no one else saw it. It wasn't a noticable sin or one of the bad ones (cursing, dancing, sex, or dancing) ... but, rather, it was that he was living his life to avoid sin. He wasn't living for Christ any more - he was just trying to avoid sin so that he could be a perfect Christian. It doesn't work like that. He comes from a family where they take Jesus literally when he says that all you have to do to get to heaven is to be perfect like God. He had never considered that Jesus might have meant *apart from accepting Christ as savior* all that you could do to get into heaven was to be perfect. Yes - you can get into heaven without Jesus ... all you have to do is to be perfect like God. Good luck, but if I were you I would accept Jesus and his grace.
So I had breakfast with him and explained grace and tried to explain why he had to stop beating himself up for his sin. He didn't understand that Christ took that beating in his place ... he didn't have to take that beating (from himself or anyone else) because of his sin.
I'm not soft on sin. I'm just really hardcore on grace. I think it is sufficient. Funny, I know.