The Good Portion

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”  Romans 8.14-15 As someone who’s never experienced the love of a father, the cry of the Spirit of adoption sounds like a voice in a foreign tongue. Fear, not love, is my native language. It’s hard for me to believe in God’s love or accept his grace. I try to earn it. And when I can no longer fool myself that I am a good enough person, I hide. When I do seek forgiveness, I try to find ways to repay the debt. When that fails, I cower in fear of condemnation. Fear, not love, also characterizes my relationships with people, especially Christians. Seeing them as God’s representatives, their rejection feels like his rejection; their judgment feels like my condemnation. That is the spirit of slavery. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, b...

Seven years ago, after five years of following Christ, a series of painful experiences shook my spiritual life like an earthquake. When the dust settled, all that was left was a firm foundation and a stable frame. The foundation was Christ, the framework my conviction that the Scripture is the word of God. So, with Christ as my hope and Scripture as my guide, I determined to rebuild. I began by rethinking the methods I had used before, to ensure I didn’t make the same mistakes again. The ruins showed me that one of my biggest mistakes was in allowing God’s word to lose its priority in my life. The shift had been slow and subtle. I had gradually drifted from the Bible itself to books, articles, discussions, and debates about the Bible and doctrine. Though what I was taking in was by and large biblical and contained plenty of Scripture references and scriptural concepts, I had begun to rely on hearsay, so to speak. Over time I accumulated my favorite group of authors and preache...