|
Our task on earth is to be the way God made us.
We don't have to become someone or something other
than what God made us to be.
God Made You Upright
Many in the religious world believe God made us
sinners, and we're in sin while in our mother's
womb. That's why men began baptizing babies a
few hundred years after Christ, and why Calvin
came up with his doctrine of total hereditary
depravity.
But God tells us we're born upright. We are
not sinners at birth.
- "Behold, I have found only this, that God
made men upright, but they have sought out
many devices" (Ec. 7:29).
Understanding that we were born upright, and
that God created us to be holy and righteous rather
than sinners, leads us to think about ourselves
in a way that's different from the world.
Repentance
Knowing God made us upright, changes the way we
think about repentance.
From a Calvinist's view, that we're born sinners,
repentance is changing from the way we were made
to something different. Repentance, then, is changing
into something we've never been before, and becoming
something we've never experienced before.
But understanding that God made us upright,
and that we were upright at our birth, helps us
have a better view of repentance. And, it helps
us understand that repentance is something we're
very capable of doing.
Repentance is merely a turning back to the person
God made us to be. It's not that we have to become
someone foreign to our being, or different than
we've ever been.
Repentance is a turning away from the person
we became through sin after our birth, to the
person we were at birth -- an upright person.
Thus, Jesus commands us to be converted and
become like little children to enter the kingdom
of heaven (Matt. 18:3).
Be The Person God Made You To Be
So we can view life as simply being the person
God made us to be -- upright.
"Upright" is translated from the Hebrew word
yashar which means straight, correct,
upright, right.
At our birth we are in a right relationship
with God, holy and sinless and righteous in His
sight. Thus, we can view our mission in life to
be the person God made us to be.
This is important, because it's easier to be
what we were made to be than to be something different.
For example, it's easier for a car to be a car,
than to be a horse. As a matter of fact, it's
impossible for a car to be a horse or a horse
to be a car, because of the way they were made.
The same is true for us. If God made us sinners,
it would be difficult to become upright, if not
impossible.
But since we were made upright, to repent and
become a child of God is natural, and simply a
returning to our roots to be the people God made
us to be from the beginning.
With this attitude, repentance becomes easier
by knowing we're doing what God made us to do.
It's Natural To Be A Christian
So then, being a Christian is in complete harmony
with our nature; it's what God created us to do.
Of course, Calvinists disagree. They believe
we were born with a sinful nature, and that sinning
is natural. Their favored translation, the New
International Version, reflects this doctrine
by incorporating the phrase "sinful nature" more
than twenty times in the New Testament.
From a Calvinist's view, being a child of God
is unnatural, and being a child of the devil is
natural (1 Jn. 3:10). Thus sin is something we
do because God made us sinners, and uprightness
is only achievable if God predestined us to be
saved, and the Holy Spirit personally comes upon
us and makes us get saved.
Doctrines like Calvinism make repentance and
an upright life seems unnatural and difficult,
exactly what the devil wants us to think.
But the truth is that repentance and an upright
life are natural, because God made us upright
from our birth (Ec. 7:29).
Conclusion
Our task on earth is to be the way God made us.
We don't have to become someone or something other
than what God made us to be.
When we sin, we stray from the path God set
us on at our birth, so we must repent and once
again become right with God.
Then we'll again be the way God created us to
be: upright.
|
