Eighty Percent of my life is ruled by a Type A personality.
I like rules.
I like following rules.
I am the first to read the rules of a new board game, explain them in minute detail and the first to drop the hammer if you dare violate said rules.
However, until recently, I didn't realize that I was taking that engrained need for rules and order and letting over shadow my spiritual walk. I had begun to believe that if (and only if) you do A, B, C and/or D, you get to heaven; if you don't..well you would go to the other place. It was all very black and white.
But one day, a few months ago, Pastor Benny said something that revolutionized my way of thinking. He said "Why are we so quick to send people to hell? Isn't God's grace enough for everyone?"
I was dumb-founded. Is that really what I had been doing in my mind? I thought I was being the good little Christian and abiding by all the rules I was suppose to and as a good little Christian I was making sure that everyone else was as well. But...had I really been mentally religating each of those people to hell because they didn't measure up to my ABC rules? Did I not think that God's grace applied to them as well?
Talk about a wake-up call.
I went on to read verse after verse in Romans about grace:
Romans 3:24 " are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."
Romans 4:16 "Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring—not only to those who are of the law..."
Romans 5:2 "through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God."
Romans 6:14 "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."
The list goes on...
So I had to change my way of thinking. And maybe today, so do you.
I needed look at people through "grace-glasses" instead of by my list of rules and how I think things should be.
What about you?
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