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    What's One "Post-Justification" Truth That Changed Your Life/Outlook?

    Paeter
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    Post  Paeter October 19th 2016, 9:59 am

    To clarify the subject, I'm not talking about your initial decision to place your trust in Jesus for payment and forgiveness of your sin. I'm talking about something that came after that.

    Just thinking back on my life as a believer and some of the changes I've gone through over the years. I've definitely changed my "position" on some theological issues. But those haven't necessarily had a huge impact on my day to day experience of life.

    In High School and college (with little random bursts since then), a recognition of the historical truth and reliability of the Bible had a big impact on my life, and injected it with purpose and faith. But in recent years it's been something different.

    The truth that, when I really spent time considering it, actually began changing my day to day experience, is the combo of God's perfect righteousness and his tireless grace and mercy. Specifically, as I consider those things while deeply examining my own heart and life compared to his absolute holiness. It just began hitting me a few years ago that I was usually thinking "I'm a sinner who needs Jesus" largely in a theoretical sense. Like answering a question on a written exam. But I would secretly think to myself, "compared to a lot of people I know, I'm doing pretty good."

    But when I started considering the perfection of Jesus and the kind of life he was willing to live, and then comparing that to my life and my heart, I was just broken by that. I looked at how I was failing my wife and my boys and how deeply rooted my selfishness is. I wasn't content to remain the same but had no idea how to change and be more like Jesus. I just came to a place of genuinely, desperately felt need for the forgiveness and mercy of Jesus, which was almost immediately followed (in tears a number of times) by the relief and freedom of knowing his tireless grace for me.

    I'm still a wreck of a person inside, but there are things that just bother me noticeably less and I'm seeing a growing security in the identity and worth that God has given me through Jesus, which changes the way I interact with people.

    So I'm curious if anyone else can think back to something that "clicked" at some point in their faith that changed their day to day outlook. Any thoughts?

    mikel.withers
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    Post  mikel.withers October 19th 2016, 1:49 pm

    That's interesting, I'll have to ponder it for a bit.

    I've always been the kind of person who says to myself, "If this is my philosophy on this subject, how then should I act?" With wildly varying degrees of success in implementation.
    I think this might be a good exercise for me.
    Rickster
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    Post  Rickster October 19th 2016, 3:48 pm

    it makes me feel sorry for those who are too focused on legalism
    Paeter
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    Post  Paeter October 20th 2016, 9:55 am

    Rickster wrote:it makes me feel sorry for those who are too focused on legalism

    My wife Holly would tell you that until college she didn't have a real understanding of grace, and had been living in a culture of legalism growing up. But when grace "clicked" for her it began a big transformation in her life that has been so inspiring to watch over the years. She's a great model of sanctification for me.
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    Post  jazzact13 October 30th 2016, 1:03 am

    In the last few years, I've been influenced by some people among the Lutheran and Reformed churches, things like the Fighting for the Faith podcasts, and books by Michael Horton and Phil Johnson.

    I'm not sure I really understood things like salvation and justification very well until I had an understanding of what Lutherans and Reformed call "the distinction between law and gospel".

    One way this distinction has helped is in this way--Christianity has become less a way of performing in order to get God's approval and blessings, but I do good works because God has already blessed me and Christ died so that I can be made right with God. I do things not to earn brownie points with God, but because God has already given me all I need.

    This has been freeing. It's not that I ignore biblical commands and the things the NT epistles tell the churches to do, but it does mean that I can escape the spiritual rat race where people teach things like, "If you will only do X, if you will be a part of X ministry or movement, if you will sow your seed faith offering of $X.00000, then God will know that you're really committed and really sold out to Him, and He'll give you all kinds of things, money and property and cars and jets and power and influence and a smoking hot wife."
    Paeter
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    Post  Paeter October 31st 2016, 10:39 am

    Man, that's awesome to hear Jazzact13. Freedom. And it makes serving so much more of an honor rather than a selfish obligation. Obedience become a willful "becoming" of what God wants for us, rather than some kind of health insurance payment. That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing that.
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    Post  Paeter March 7th 2017, 10:52 am

    This is pretty close to the intent of the topic when I originally posted. Not quite, but enough I thought I'd update here.

    My study mentor and I finished our multi-year trek through the Psalms a couple months ago and have now started back into a more academic study again. This time I requested he school me on hermeneutics, since that increasingly seems to be at the heart of issues as I interact with Christians that come from a very different perspective from my own. We're currently halfway through Goron D. Fee's "Gospel And Spirit: Issues In New Testament Hermeneutics", which is all kinds of brainy good stuff. More than that, I can begin to see how educating myself more intently in hermeneutics will solidify the foundation of my thinking in scripture and allow me to zero in on truth more quickly.

    So I may be in the midst of learning some new truths that will significantly solidify my foundation in scripture. Exciting stuff!
    WhiteBoy
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    Post  WhiteBoy March 11th 2017, 9:46 pm

    Interesting stuff.  I may check out that book.  Thanks for the update, Paeter.  

    I never did answer, but I would say the doctrine of election rocked my world.  I think I had basically misunderstood it for so long so I rejected it.  I *knew* that I'd chosen to follow Jesus!  Turns out that isn't what the doctrine really means.  I began seeing God's complete sovereignty all over the Bible.  It is so pervasive, I have no idea how I missed it before.  For me it became simply undeniable.  Once I embraced it, many other things kind of "clicked" and simply made more sense.  I still do not fully understand it, but that is not a prerequisite to belief.  

    Another thing that has changed my paradigm is a book called Everyday Church.  I don't like to point to books by men, but this one helped me a lot.  It is about how church isn't a place we go or a thing we do.  It's something we should be "doing" every day and everywhere we go.  Even before, I believed we should not live a compartmentalized life, but this brought it to a whole new level for me and has given me more of a mind and heart for missions than ever before.

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