Higher Obedience

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is foolishness to us because it proclaims God’s extravagant generosity to repentant wretches who wished Him dead and dishonored Him to the highest point. And those wretches are all of us, there is no exception. We should stop thinking only in terms of big and small, many or few sins one has made. Some hide behind the idea that they claim they have never done anything very bad, but only the normal sins such as lying and disobeying parents. The source of the problem is not that we practice evil things (no matter their quantity and quality), but it is that we are in rebellion against God. No matter if it is open rebellion or hidden in our hearts, no matter if we sin on the rooftops or try to look nice yet sin in our minds, it makes no difference, we are all rebels. The rebels are not only those who consciously go against God, but those who simply have no thought for God and do not acknowledge Him as Creator and His Son Jesus as Master and Redeemer.

No matter what kind of rebels we are, we have all rejected God and wished He were not. Our attitudes make this plain since we live our lives as if He were not. We choose what we do with our lives, our resources, our spare time, our bodies without trying to know what our Creator wants for us. We put Him aside, even doubting of His very existence or proclaiming He is not. We live in such a way that claims God has no power over us and has no importance. We do not care. All that God has freely given us, namely our breath, health, resources, money, abilities, we use them for our own benefit and glory, not acknowledging Him in any of our ways, or thanking Him, or seeking to use those gifts according to His own purpose. We want to make a name for ourselves, we want to live as it pleases us and we use what God has given us for ourselves. We proclaim with our lives that we refuse to be under the lordship of our Creator, that we are ungrateful and do not need Him. How are we to suppose that we will escape the judgment of God?

It would be very right and just that our Creator throws us all into a place where He is not, a place of torment and indescribable pain. After all, we reject Him on the earth, why would we embrace Him in heaven? And God shall judge all wretched rebels and shall get rid of them in hell, where they will be without Him and will suffer for their rebellion and that is right. This makes good sense, we reap what we sow, even though the consequence of our rebellion goes against our will, we must admit that we are playing a game according to its Creator’s rules, not our own.

But here is what may sound foolishness to many: God decided that He would send Himself, His Son and become one of us, die to pay the price of our condemnation and rise from the dead as a proof of God’s acceptance of his Son’s sacrifice for our rebellion. This is the Good News, that whoever acknowledge his rebellion, repents from it and embrace Jesus Christ as his sole righteousness before God, by faith, this rebel is made right with God. God will not accept any good dead made by anyone in payment for one’s sins, only true repentance and faith in Jesus, putting Him as Lord over our lives makes us right with God. And God does not only grant repentant rebels to be clean and not go to hell, but God makes them into His own sons and daughters, heirs of eternal life and all He has, He throws parties and rejoices over their change of heart, He is in a continual relationship with them in which He guides and sustains them. God does not say this earthly life will be easy and comfortable, but He promises the everlasting joy of heaven in His presence for all eternity, getting to know Him, the everlasting, praising His extravagant love for us, wretched rebels.