"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated."
~ D.A. Carson, Christianity Today 7-31-2000
2 comments:
Wow.
Salvation doesn't make things any easier, does it? I like this comparison: Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but he certainly didn't travel to every plantation in the south, knock the owner on the head, and personally lead the slaves to easy freedom. The slaves had the choice to ignore the proclamation and stay on the farm if they so wished, and even if they tried to leave, the resulting troubles were just as tough to endure.
God says that we too are free, but that certainly doesn't mean that holiness is a done deal. It can be tough to leave the old life behind...
Post a Comment