Travelling around a bit, as I have wont to do(!), I do keep my ear to the ground to see what’s going on/being said – not quite like in the old days (and those words alone date me!!), when I was in Youth for Christ, and then a fringe YWAMmer, when my circles of friends would have included some of the-then ‘superstars’ of the small pond called Christian music!

Just in case you don’t read Facebook (which I know, despite it’s all-consuming vacuuming up of most people on the planet!), I put a quote there that is worthy of repeating here. Right now there’s a lot of talk about grace: no, it’s being called ‘hyper-grace’. Now, as you know, I’m no theologian, so I don’t want to even begin to try and ‘unpack’ grace, let alone hyper-grace: a lot of people are concerned about the ‘hyper’ bit, suggesting it gives licence to people to do what they like, once saved.

My take on that would be from Psalm 37:4 – known to most, I’m sure: ‘Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desire of your heart’. St Benedict of Hippo (I think!! – waiting to make sure that’s correct!), précied that verse as ‘Love God and do what you like’…. Some people are afraid of that freedom: but surely, the truth is, that if you TRULY love God, doing what you like is only doing what will please God…? That would be hyper-grace. I know in current theological debate (which is where I opt out!!) that the ‘heaven/hell’ issue raises its head again, which got Rob Bell into so much trouble with conservative evangellycals not too long ago.

The quote I put on Facebook today is from fantastic American Bible Teacher/prophet/wisdom-filled Francis Frangipane. He posted this today:

• Question: What will happen if you stop seeking God and turn spiritually lukewarm? The answer is, nothing will happen. Meteors won’t fall from Heaven onto your house. Life will continue as it was and nothing uncommon to all men will occur if you stop seeking God. You will remain as you have always been: unchanged. An unchanged life is judgment enough.

  

God, please….SAVE US from unchanged lives. I can’t think of anything worse than being the same tomorrow, where God, my love for God, my understanding of God, my effectiveness for God, is the same today as it was last year, or even yesterday. The tragedy is that an unchanged life doesn’t mean that you stay where you are: it means you go further and further away from God as God is always moving on….

I’d rather be a bloke who makes a myriad mistakes (which I do), but desperately longs after more and more of God. If the translation of Revelation 3:15-16 is right, and it IS, God preserve us – especially me, my friends, my family, from being lukewarm….

SURELY, THERE IS NO BETTER EXAMPLE OF ‘HYPER-GRACE’ THAN GOD, SENDING HIS ONLY SON, TO BECOME ‘OUR SIN’ AND GIVE US THE PROMISE OF ETERNAL LIFE? To me that’s pretty ‘hyper’! But accepting and believing that, why would we WANT to remain unchanged, when, because of Jesus, we ARE being transformed into his likeness with EVER-INCREASING glory. I want to BE glory, not just experience it, which seems to be an ‘in’ thing these days…

An unchanged life is judgment enough….. ooohhhh….. I’d rather check-out now than spend my next 30 years unchanged. Francis, thank you for such an amazing wisdom-full insight as that last sentence.