THE EYE OF GRACE

Galatians 2:21 NIV

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

I have always wondered God's view of men....

Is it really that he sees us as being substantially different from who we apparently are? Or does He see us through the purified filter of His eternal legal frame of reference?

I have reasons to believe the later to be true. Indeed, all men mortal as they may be in the flesh are within immortal conciousnesses eternally sentenced to the light or as CS Lewis put it "to the nothingness".

God judges men only from His legal frame of refence but subject to their choices in life. Choices, either to serve self, which is the center of all treasonable acts deserving death or to serve God the eternal father.

Romans 5:19 NIV

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

The key choices of other men are patterned after the first or second man...this has to do with identification.

Identification, either to serve self, desiring like Adam to be independent of God or to serve the father's will.

After the fall, Adam and all mankind has continually attempted to serve God on their own terms and in their own strength.

God, through our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ has presented a new and living way to pleasing the father. For us to attempt to approach God on the basis of our strength and our terms is to disrespect and show contempt for the cross; God's provision for man.

We must continually hide behind Christ and identify with him to be found justified in the eyes of God andHis law of grace.

The life of the cross is not self serving and proud. It is sacrificial and othered centered.