Sean's Blog: Why be Good?
Posted on: 18th September, 2011
Towards the end of his life Selwyn Hughes was asked to list the things that led to spiritual success so they could be passed to the next generation. He started with over 50, yet when pushed by his editorial team focused on 7 and left them as a deposit for the next generation in the excellent book ‘Seven Laws to Spiritual Success’ (see www.cwr.org.uk).
Perhaps no surprises that ‘worship’ came in as number one, but I always found it strange that ‘gratitude’ was number two. Shouldn’t it be reading the bible, or prayer, or openness to the Holy Spirit? Yet over the years I have grown to see his wisdom.
As we continue our series on Amazing Grace, how gratitude has come into focus. The free gift of grace – how can we not be grateful? As we go deeper into grace, how our gratitude increases. Tim Keller uses the phrase the ‘dynamic of grace and gratitude’, and what a dynamic it is! The more we find grace the more gratitude flows forth.
Philip Yancey says grace is the idea that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. If this is the case we are faced with the question: “Why be good?”
Grace shows us that we are not good because we have to be good. Grace results in gratitude and as we find this dynamic flow into our life, more and more we find we want to be good. (If you weren’t there today why not download the message?)
So much to be thankful for
- Congratulations to Ric and Lindy on the arrival of number 4!
- Thanks to the kids workers for leading 6 kids to Jesus last week.
- Thanks to Sam Berry for all his hard work in Jubilee – may God bless you at university, you will be greatly missed.
- Thanks to the Kidz Klub team for serving the 60 plus kids on Saturday.
- Thanks to Phil for encouraging us all to invite someone to Alpha!
- Thanks to Pete and Leah for serving 16 young people at Youth last Friday
See you next Sunday for our Vision Sunday...
