“You knew you had to obey God because if you didn't he wouldn't answer your prayers or take you to heaven. But if you remove this fear and talk so much about free grace and unmerited acceptance—what incentive will you have to live a good life? It seems like this gospel way of living won't produce people who are as faithful and diligent to obey God's will without question.
“But if, when you have lost all fear of punishment you also lose incentive to live an obedient life, then what was your motivation in the first place It could only have been fear. What other incentive is there? Awed, grateful love.”—Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God, page 122
<idle musing>
Wow! That last paragraph hit hard. What was/is my motivation? Is it love of God, or fear of the consequences. It is so easy to lapse into the elder brother mentality; no wonder we need grace on a moment-by-moment basis! Otherwise we lapse back into performance based religion instead of grace-based Christianity.
</idle musing>
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1 comment:
Awesome. That really is the difference between living by law and living by the gospel of grace. Motivated and driven by fear of consequences, or motivated and driven by love.
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