Lessons on grace are all over the place
How does one become godly? Do you ever wonder about that? Is it by following the list of rules - the 'does' and 'don'ts' in the Bible. Well, sort of, but not necessarily in the way you might think. How do worship and godliness relate to one another, worship and obedience? How does grace enable us to walk in obedience to God in a way that the Law never could? It does it through love. The grace of God given to us in Jesus Christ enables to love God as our dearly beloved Father, rather than live our lives in dread of God the Judge of the world. And in that new-found love we worship the God we once feared. And in that worship we are changed. And why do I bring that up? Well, because of Woody Allen, of course!For instance, in order to be a jazz musician, you have to listen and listen and listen to a lot of jazz. And that’s an act of love. You don’t think, I’m listening to study it. You just listen because you love it. And you love it, and love it… and gradually you learn. You really learn everything valuable through osmosis. It’s the same with play-writing or movie-directing or acting. You love either reading or watching films or plays or listening to music. And in some way, over the years, without making any attempt, it gets into your blood, into the fibre of your body or something. The business of studying it where it becomes a chore and a discipline is wrong. For instance, some actors would watch Marlon Brando when he first started in films. They just loved watching his movies, they’d watch and watch. And when they went to act, they acted like Marlon Brando. They didn’t try to, but his acting style became absorbed in them. You find the same thing with music all the time. Someone listens to Charlie Parker. And he listens and listens and loves him and learns to play the saxophone- and he sounds like him! Then he has to break off from that and develop his own style. But it all comes from a very personal and passionate interest. If you want to teach someone film-directing, you could almost say, ‘Just keep going to the movies, and it will pass into your body.’And, of course, I can appeal to an even higher authority: see also, Galatians 2:16-21; Romans 5:1--11; Romans 8
HT to my dear husband Paul Mathers
Comments
I have to wonder why we do not spend even more time in His word than we do.
I think for many of us (I would include myself here, unfortunately), familiarity with Scripture can leave us feeling a bit "old hat" about it. We think we know it and thus spend less time exploring. I think it's a bit like what we can do with our spouses, taking them for granted, so to speak.