You can have chili, cedar cheese crackers and raspberry sorbet for dinner but there is a day of reckoning or in my case, a morning of testing. That meal doesn’t sound like a diabetic rebellion but wow. Ding ding ding! High score for blood sugar.
Spiritually there is stuff we do and get away with that’s off our spiritual diet. We ingest and partake of things that we shouldn’t and because of grace and mercy we are forgiven when we apologize to God.
But there are 2 things I wonder about. The first is, is saying we are sorry the same as repentance? Repentance means to turn around, change course, do a 180 degree turn. The second is, what does this cheating on our spiritual diet do to our spiritual health? We may be forgiven but are we killing the spirits moving and working in our lives?
In the Lutheran liturgy each week as he began his sermon the pastor would say “grace and peace to you, from God our father and from our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ”.
It’s the greeting Pail used in many of his letters, Peter used it too. “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”
The reason I mention these scriptures is that they state Jesus’ dual role in the life of the Christian. he is our savior, his death pays for our sin and he is our Lord, our boss, our master, our sovereign King. It means he can tell us what to do and we will obey him. He can also tell us what not to do and we will obey him.
Do we really need a boss in our life telling us what to do and even harder, what not to do? Yes. Yes We do need that because this boss ordering our life Is the same boss who can and will forgive us when we fail him. And besides that His orders are always for our best good.
I sum up.
I fail, in my diet, in my spiritual life. There is forgiveness but there may be consequences, physically and spiritually. Jesus wants to fulfill his dual role in my life, save me from my sins and lead me as a good King. When I fail I should repent, turn around, throw the cheese crackers away! (the sorbet is gone already, burp).
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”
Peter’s Posts 