"Did Pastor Myers really say that, that we are to be immoral and irreligious?"  No, Pastor Myers didn't say that and I doubt anyone actually thought I did.  However, given how much of our tradition has emphasized the decent and orderly practice of religion, and the importance of living a moral life, some might have wondered how these things - our goodness and God's grace - fit together.  After all, the Bible does say, "By their fruits, you shall know them."
 
On Sunday, following the example of our passage from Ephesians, I suggested God's grace is far more important than our goodness.  If we do not have Christ in our hearts, a gift we can only receive by God's grace, then even our religion and our morality can become the source of our greatest sins.  This is not to say, we should not strive to be good Christians or moral people.  Rather, it is to say, even in our goodness we must totally rely on God's grace, giving the honor and glory to God for any goodness within us.
 
Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it this way,
 
It is not religion that makes us good before God.  Rather it is God alone who makes us good.  It all comes down to what God has done...  Both culture and religion stand under divine judgment.  The themes of our morality and our religion have been exposed; we wanted to be masters of eternity, and now we are slaves.  Only one thing can save us:  the way of God, which is called grace...  Not religion but revelation, grace, love.  Not the way to God but the way of God to humanity: that is the sum of Christianity.
 
Our goodness does not co-exist with God's grace.  Our goodness is not the means by which we receive God's grace.  There is no quid pro quo.  Our goodness is born of God's grace.  Another way to say this is:  "Our salvation comes, not because we accept Christ, but because Christ has accepted us."  Even our ability to say, "Yes!" to God's grace is a gift of God's grace.
 
To many, even people of faith, this is inconceivable.  They put much stock in the "fact" they claimed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  They put even more stock in the places of their lives where they can show others how good they are.  In time, some even become Pharisaic, thanking God that they are not like...  This according, according to Bonhoeffer, is why the good news of God's love in Jesus Christ is not only our greatest hope, but, for some, the source of our deepest disappointment.
 
Our merit, our pride - our honor - all that is finished.  But God's grace, God's glory, and God's honor all begin.  Not our religion - not even the Christian religion! - but God's grace: that is the message of all Christianity.  It all depends, not on our outstretched beggar's hand, but on what God puts in it, and that means basically that it's not about us and our doing, but about God and God's doing.  It's about our doing only to the extent that our doing makes room for God's doing, to the extent that it lets God's grace be grace.
 
How might this change our lives, our families, our life together as Christians, our communities, our nation, even our world, if our conversations, our politics or our culture wars, even our life choices might reflect such an understanding of our dependence upon God's grace? People of faith, I believe Dr. Bonhoeffer is correct.  We are all beggars, whose very existence depends upon God and God alone.  If only we could live this way.  Thanks be to God.
 
 

                                           
Join us on August 5, 2012, from 4:30 -7:00 p.m. for our Annual Ice Cream Social, here at Faith United Presbyterian Church. You may purchase a ticket from an Icebreaker member or in the office. Your choice of pie, ice cream, beef barbecue sandwich, chips, applesauce & drink, $6.00 - Adults, $4.00 - Children 12 & under, or pie, ice cream & drink, $3.00 - Adults, $2.00 - Children 12 & under.  

                                                  

Over the years we've accumulated a number of coats that are hanging up in the hallway outside of the offices. Please double check prior to September 1, 2012.  After that date, they will be taken to Strom Center.  Thank you!

   

                                                  

Help fill Jamieson Center's food pantry!  You can bring any nonperishable food item and place it under the mirror outside of the office each week.  Thanks for your help. 

   

                                                  

Fillman Fellowship will meet at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, August 9, at Dew's Diner on South A Street.

   

                                                  

Thanks to many of you we have almost the whole month of August covered to deliver Meals on Wheels; however, we are still short one day, Friday, August 10.  If you are able to fill this slot, please either sign your name up on the office door calendar or contact Heather.