I was at a meeting earlier today and there was talk about visiting, it was suggested that one person should make an initial visit then two should go for subsequent visits. I dont know why but this brought to mind the whole kind of good cop, bad cop type idea and maybe this would be a good technique for evangelism? Bare with me on this, its only a crazy idea but it would be interesting to see what you think. There is a statistic that says church attendance started to decline when preachers stopped preaching hell, fire and eternal damnation and I think most of us would agree that to stand in the street and tell random people that they should turn or burn for instance is perhaps not the most effective let alone the nicest form of evangelism . But have we gone to far the other way, we preach a God of love and Grace for that is the God we worship, but He is also a God of Justice, and it s not only the old testament where we see Gods anger destroy people, Ananias and Sapphira, so is there a need to perhaps bring back an element of the wrath of God in our preaching to bring a balance with the grace we perhaps focus on too much?
I have been giving this post some thought and I think the trouble is that grace can be presented as all nicey nicey but that is only really one side of it. Grace is a cycle that when we start to live by grace and recognise God’s unconditional love in our lives we say thank you to God. As we thank god we are worshipping and in this place God shows us new things that are not right in our lives, through his grace he gives us the strength to ask forgiveness and repent which brings us back to a place of wanting to thank him more and so the cycle continues.
The truth is grace is far from bland but is often preached that way but when presented in the right way incorporates justice, hope and forgiveness.
I agree with you, we certainly can make Grace seem very run of the mill when really it is a wonderful and exciting opportunity, I guess part of my thinking is that we spend so long talking about Grace that we almost miss out on reminding people why we need it, without grace we are all condemned to death because we are all sinners and maybe occasionally we should not be afraid to state that, although perhaps not quite so bluntly as that?