God...concerned or not concerned about sin

God is not at all concerned about our sin and is totally concerned at the same time.

How?

Not concerned…

Our sin has absolutely no effect on God's attitude and posture of perfect love, attention and care towards us if we are in Christ. It is one of complete love and commitment to us no matter what we do or don't do because first and foremost, it is based on the work of Christ, not ours.

But also, because we are created in his image. He values his image in us and desires that image be developed to the maximum of its potential, i.e. that we become all he intends and designed us to be for His glory and our joy. As his fully redeemed image bearers, God's commitment to us is fixed and unrelenting.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. 

Very concerned…

The essence of sin is our alienation and separation from God due to our rebellious distrust of him. Even as his children, who are completely forgiven and fully loved, this alienation *still exists, is very real and has real effect/harm; it's just that in Christ, it exists only on our side of the relationship, not God's side. As someone once said, "if you don't feel close to God, guess how moved. Hint... it wasn't God."

It is not that God is worried by our distrust, but he cares greatly about our experiencing all he has for us as well as our putting him on display so others might be drawn to him and also experience that love.

To love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbors as ourselves is to be fully aligned and in harmony with the heart of God. To the degree, we are not loving God and our neighbor in this way (i.e. with everything we have) is the degree to which we are not in harmony and alignment with him. Again, this has nothing to do with God's love for us. This is totally settled if we are in Christ. But this has everything to do with our love for him and our properly displaying him in all his glory.

To be out of alignment with him is to not see and enjoy him fully or display him truly. He is relentless in uprooting those areas of unbelief in us that keep us from being closer to him, for our joy and his glory.

This alienation/ misalignment (by us) is completely separate from his alienation from us. His alienation was already fully addressed in Christ and no longer exists. As Christ shouted out, "it is finished." There can no longer be any separation from God's side. This separation is now only on our side. 

Our moving away from him in rebellious distrust does not keep God from loving us but keeps us from fully participating in the manifestation and experience of his love already totally and absolutely fixed upon us in Christ.
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*our alienation from God still exists because remnants of our rebellious unbelief still exist within all of us, even as his children. It is this unbelief God continually works to eradicate for our joy and his glory. 

Being diligent...motive is key.

Being thoughtful, careful, diligent, obedient, disciplined etc are all good and important things in themselves, not bad.

Though "obedience" can be legalistic and in fact often is, it does not have to be nor is it necessarily (true love driven faithfulness/obedience is never legalistic).

The question is why are we diligent and obedient. What is our motive/reason for being diligent, careful and thoughtful etc? 

Motive is the only difference between true God honoring behavior and feigned legalistic "obedience." Otherwise on the surface we can't tell the difference; they can look exactly the same.

There can only be one of two reasons (motivations) for our external obedience. Detecting the reason however, is not at all easy because we rarely know our own heart and the true motives behind our behavior. 

And what are those reasons? 

1.     To honor and bring attention to (glorify) God out of love and awe for him.

2.     To take care of myself. 

Everything we do, is done for one of these two reasons

Mixed motives

We complicate things however because our motives are #mixed. Rarely do we do anything with a pure (singleness of) motive. What is most important is which motive is primary i.e. leads/predominates. 

# being mixed doesn't mean there is a third motive, it simply means these two can be intertwined. They are still distinct nevertheless.

Self interest, good or bad?

Plus desiring both things (God's honor and our best) in itself is not necessarily bad. It's ok and in fact normal for us to desire our best. Christ assumes self interest (not condemn it) when he tells us to love our neighbors as (in the same way) we love ourselves  or care for (love) our wives as (in the same way) we care for our own body. 

In fact the appeal of the promises of God is to our best interest. The promise of eternal life is made to who? To me, to self i.e. a promise is a direct appeal to my self interest. I want life, not death and so do you. 

There is nothing wrong with our *wanting what is best for ourselves. Why would God appeal to it otherwise? It is no more wrong than it would be for God to want what's best for himself. Does God ever do anything that is ultimately against himself? It may appear so short term but never long-term. In fact our wanting what is best for us is because we are like God, who wants what's best for himself. This in part is what it means to be in his image. 


Gods glory and our best are not at odds 

The issue isn't us wanting our best, it is how is our best truly achieved; through independent self effort or as a result of pursuing God out of love for him in response to his love for us. 

Is our best the fruit of honoring God (which is legitimate) or the result of our **direct and independent pursuit of that best (which is not legitimate, since it involves trust in self as one's best provider, instead of God who is the only true provider and sustainer of all things)? 

The ***mystery of life (life as God originally designed it to be) is that pursuing and experiencing God, is in fact the best thing we can do for ourselves. And it is in him alone we find true life, joy, meaning purpose etc. 

Yet this is not the primary reason we are to pursue God. We pursue him simply because he's most glorious and worthy of our total pursuit. And because he is, our greatest joy is found in pursuing and knowing him. This is the "natural" (originally designed and intended) outcome of who God is and the way we are. To go contrary to this not only dishonors God, but is against us; our best interest and well being. 

To say it simply, desiring and pursuing God's highest glory is our greatest good and joy.

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*For an engaging article by Kyle Strobel (Professor of Spiritual Formation at Talbot Seminary) on whether self love is valid or not click here

**If pursuing a specific objective is honoring to God then we can and are to pursue it with all the energy God gives us. In this instance this would be a direct pursuit of something but it is something that God has told us to pursue. And since it is, that direct pursuit is obedience to God and therefore also honoring to him. Some examples would be to "go and disciple all nations" or "love God with all our heart soul mind and strength." Faithful obedience/direct action is the only legitimate response to these directions.

***true life, which is in God alone, is a mystery in the sense that it goes contrary to our fallen nature and therefore is not obvious, but mysterious to us in our present fallen condition. Who we were designed to be (i.e. those who find God to be our true life) and who we are "naturally" inclined to be (i.e. those who seek life apart from God due to our fallen state of rebellion) are contrary to each other.

This is true of both believers and unbelievers in the sense that we all are inclined away from God...even Christians. BUT as believers we have a new and additional dynamic within us i.e. the love of God shed about in our hearts by the Spirit of God. This new inclination empowers us to live once again as God originally designed us to live. And it is only by this new dynamic/power/love/Spirit that we can. 

How can God love the unlovely?

First we must be lovable i.e. there must be something about us that God cherishes (loves) deeply. While at the same time, there is also something unlovely about us that God opposes. How can this be? Can both be true? 

What does he cherish?

First and foremost he cherishes (values) himself, for he is the greatest, wisest, loveliest, most powerful and beautiful being in the universe. There is no one more glorious, significant or powerful.

And we are like God. And because we are, we are able to glory in and enjoy the beauty of who he is and to reflect back to him and out to others his greatness in a way no other created being can. Our capacity to appreciate, enjoy and reflect the infinitely valuable God gives us value; makes us significant. Valuable both to others as well as to God himself.

What does he oppose?

God opposes anything that diminishes the recognition of His great glory/value.

Why does he oppose this? Because everything is from, through and to him. For him or us to conduct ourselves otherwise not only dishonor's who he is but is also to our harm. It is also contrary to who we are as well as who God is. In short, it doesn't fit the way things are. For us to value anything above God most high (the most valuable) is to be misled and to mislead others; it is to live a lie. This ultimately leads to our harm and eventual destruction and the harm and destruction of others.

So if both of these qualities (lovable and unlovely) are within us at the same time how does God reconcile these two opposite characteristics? How does he love the unlovely?

He removes the consequences of our unloveliness by putting it on himself in and through his own son Jesus. Once the consequences are removed, by our rightful suffering being placed onto Jesus, he is free to focus only on who we are as his image bearers with the capacity to receive and give love, honor and glory and reflect him out to others. In short to make us like his Son. In Christ, God is now for us, not against us. 

overcoming addiction

What enables us to successfully break away from an addiction?

Is it guilt and shame? 

That may play a roll short term. But if the change is to last it must go beyond guilt and shame.

Long term change occurs only if ¹three things happen:

1. ²We realize the consequences of an addiction outweighs the benefits; that the ultimate rewards for discontinuing the addiction are greater then the ones gained by it.

This often takes time i.e. the pleasure of an addiction is usually immediate, whereas the benefits of turning away from it often don't appear right away but ³over time. 

This usually starts with a desire to get away from the harm the addiction is causing. The longer one continues life addiction free, the greater the benefits become. The short term benefits of the addiction are no longer as great as the long term benefits. 

2. We come to see/experience something more satisfying that overpowers our addictive desires (or severs it's pull) i.e. when we find something more desirable than what we are presently addicted to, it draws us to it instead of our being drawn to the former addiction. 

3. A desire to honor God because we understand how he has honored us. And how has he? By giving something of great value to us so he might have a relationship with us. This says something very significant about our value to God, does it not? 

For more on what motivates us to obedience click here. 

For more on our worth to God, click here. 

For a discussion on what is our greatest reward click here.

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¹We may experience short term change if the first or second reason occur. But the greatest chance for permanent change involves all three. 

Plus the 3rd reason never stops expanding. The more we understand what God has done for us, the greater our desire to honor him and the less likely we are to fall into former or new addictive behavior. 

²The significance of these three reasons is the reverse order, 3 being the most significant. I only list them this way because this is usually the order in which we discover and experience them organically.

³Or maybe not appear at all. Maybe only through confidence/trust that the eternal benefits far outweigh the temporary loses are what we must depend on to break away from addiction i.e. only the hope of (and belief in) a future reward for faithfully pursuing God - vs partaking in an addiction - is what enables us to avoid destructive/addictive behavior.