Your insight for a blog about “life on God’s terms”, can you tell us what was your inspiration was or how this came to you?

I see so many people today who only want to accept God on their terms.  This is especially true in regard to the social issues of the day.  Do you not like the biblical prohibition against homosexuality?  Then, ignore these passages or take other passages out of context to attempt to justify this sin.  You think the Bible is too stringent on the limited situations where one can divorce?  Then, hear an extra-biblical word from God that he wanted you to leave your wife and marry another person so you can have a better marriage.  God’s Word does not compromise for any given situation and I felt that Truth needed to be restated to a world/church who increasingly seem to feel that they can set the terms of their acceptance of Christ.

It’s true that the heart of man is bent on evil through and through, committed to his own way.  Regarding your first example, I heard a popular actor rail against Christianity, even objecting to having a Gideon Bible in his hotel room because of Leviticus 20: 13-21, which he recited as justification for his offense toward God.  However, I have eventually always found God to be gracious, merciful and good.  Some people, like me, struggle with the extent of His virtue, that God would totally forgive forever my sin that heaps up to block the sun.  Martin Luther flailed himself with whips until he came to a faith grounded in God’s word.  Do you think “Life on God’s terms” encompasses faith to accept all the various and unconditional mercies of God?  Have you experienced this or a similar situation in your relationship with God?

Yes, one has to have faith in God’s promise of mercy.  When I become introspective and look inside myself I see nothing but despair, emptiness and failure in my natural state.  This is discouraging and does test my faith that God could ever extend me mercy as unworthy as I am.  However, I find God buttresses my faith thru His Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who bears witness with me that my sins have been redeemed.   C.S. Lewis has said, “God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from.  He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies.  Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun.  They need to think again.  They are still only playing with religion.  Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger – according to the way you react to it.  And we have reacted the wrong way.”  Whenever I sin I want to hide from God as I have reacted to His goodness in the wrong way.  However, after repenting of it, I often feel the Holy Spirit comforting me by reminding me of God’s mercy and grace and love to me.  The key to accepting unconditional mercy from God is to remember that God operates in grace, that is undeserved favor.  We never deserve mercy and as God’s goodness is the supreme terror that we cannot face, it is so hard at times to accept that He extends mercy to us for our sins, but He does thru grace.  Accept His grace by faith, poor sinner, and enter in to His joy.