Priests

I'm glad I don't have to dress up like priests.  (this isn't a slam on Catholicism).  I'm glad I get to wear like a normal outfit.  Like in the catholic church, the more important you are, the fancier your outfit gets.  It's the same thing in Baptist churches, it's just not a uniform.  I'm sure if I was senior pastor at my church, there would be a lot of pressure on me to dress nicer.

Christians like to look different than the world.  We like to make our differences obvious.  The problem is that even though our externals are different, we're exactly the same underneath.  Broken.  Sinners.  People who need God.  

The only thing that makes me different from the rest of the world is the forgiveness that Jesus GAVE me.  And no matter how good I look on the outside, it's Jesus that is the difference and nothing else.  JM

Acts 8:9-24

What are the limits of grace? We pressure people so much to instantly demonstrate that they are a Christian with their actions. They might have been an addict for 20 years, then trust Jesus and we think they're not going to struggle with addiction anymore, instantly, forever. Now granted, God has the ability to make that happen. But I think that is a very rare occurence.
So why do we put limits on grace. We call someone out on cussing, or drinking, or sloth and yet refuse to honestly evaluate our own lives and the sins with which we struggle. Any accountability that is going to provide for true life change is going to happen in the context of a reciprocally accountable relationship.

Matthew 13:52-58

Sometimes it's tought to shake your past. Everybody knows who you are. Then you try to change and all people can think about is how you used to be. When I first became a Christian, I had to shake what I had done as an atheist. I was a moral person, but my thought patterns were based on atheist logic.
It's amazing that even though all Christians are dependent on God's grace, it's the new Christians that we like to make feel like they are the only ones who need it. What I mean is, we like to forget about all of the junk that we did, and all of the sins that we've had forgiven, but we like to bring it up with other people. It's almost like we thing that everybody else is under grace except for us.
I think one of the things that holds students back from becoming passionate for God is they feel that their friends won't understand the change. They'll have to become known for something else. They have their identity in being the snobby girl, or the party guy, but to change that perception is more daunting than changing the actual behaviour. JM