Troublesome Topic: OUR BALANCE SHOULD REFLECT GOD’S BALANCE

Having made the case that God’s idea of balance is slightly weighted in favor of mercy over punishment, I need to be quick to say that the balance in the preaching of our day is wildly skewed; it heavily favors mercy and grace over holiness and eventual punishment for sin. There is a refreshing beauty in the slightly off-centered balance of God; there is great danger in the wildly off-centered balance that is so often preached today.

God’s grace and mercy are strongly emphasized in every song we sing and every sermon we hear. However, we should also be hearing about God’s holy standard almost as much as we hear about His grace and mercy.

We are messed up and need to hear that God accepts us, that He does not expect us to get our act together before we come to Him, because we are incapable of doing that. But we also need to be reminded regularly that God loves us too much to leave us in our mess. He has many major clean-up projects that He wants to carry out in our lives in order to make us more like Him. If we do not allow Him to make those major changes in our lives, we are not the kind of followers He desires and we are in danger of being rejected by Him and punished for loving our sin more than we love Him.

God wants us to be a reflection, a miniature picture, of who He is and what He is like. In order to properly reflect Him, we need to understand His character and the unity of holiness and mercy is a key part of His character.

We need to ask ourselves these questions:

What am I reflecting? Do I reflect the world, or do I reflect God’s character?

In what areas do I need to grow in order to better reflect God’s character?