The Family Tree
by Kathy Brown on June 9th, 2010 | 0 comments
Being "Gams" is wonderful. Grandparents have all the fun without the sleepless nights, endless dirty diapers and serious consideration of discipline. A grandbaby is as perfect as any human can be. It is unseemly to think that an adorable little one who reaches up to be held, smiles and giggles is a lost soul.
Many churches who consider themselves "Christian" refuse to acknowledge what the Bible says is the Truth. Most teach that man is good: with a bit of reform, training and diligence each of us can become better people, pleasing to God. The Scriptures teach something else. It says that we come into the world spiritually dead, separated from the One who is our Creator. Unless we recognize our need of becoming spiritually alive (by the Holy Spirit's action,) we remain aloof from our Heavenly Father and cannot be in His Family. We cannot inherit salvation or earn it. It is by Grace that we are reunited to God. He does all the work: drawing, convicting and breathing His Life into us. Being transformed means the Holy Spirit in us changes our desires and beliefs.
Francis A. Schaeffer, in his book The God Who is There, presents the deep philosophic roots of ordinary cultural ideas such as "man is fundamentally good":
Christianity is realistic because it says that if there is no truth, there is also no hope; and there can be no truth if there is no adequate base. It is prepared to face the consequences of being proved false and say with Paul: If you find the body of Christ, the discussion is finished, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. It leaves absolutely no room for a romantic answer. For example, in the realm of morals, Christianity does not look over this tired and burdened world and say that it is slightly flawed, a little chipped, but easily mended. Christianity is realistic and says the world is marked with evil and man is truly guilty all along the line. Christianity refuses to say that you can be hopeful for the future if you are basing your hope on evidence of change for the better in mankind, The Christian agrees with the man in real despair, that the world must be looked at realistically, whether in the area of Being or in morals.
Christianity is the only religion in the world that is not based on working one's way to salvation. Admitting we are sinners in a deep sense, not just in the "doing wrong" but in the "being wrong" way, is horrifying without a way out. The options are to rely on human effort to make things better or on the One Who says we need His nature.
All parents look at their newborn and find it hard to believe they are intrinsically selfish, disobedient and wanting to be served. Grandparents too. But, if we observe long enough, listen and pay attention -- one thing is for sure: they have inherited a gene no one wants to pass on. It is the one that carries sin. And good grief; it was handed down through Gammy.
From 1 Peter 1:23:
"For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God."
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