Forgiveness without victory

4 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel–which is really only half the gospel. What you preach is 'sin management' as if the main purpose for life on earth was to get a ticket to heaven, but that our lives themselves and the work we do here are meaningless, or at best, means to an end.

This is not what we preached to you! Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to diminish the gospel of Christ. The message we preach everywhere is that Christ died to make a bride for himself, a pure and spotless bride. While you might hear "come as you are", if you also "leave as you are" you haven't received Christ! You must instead leave your life and come follow Jesus: "deny (yourself) and take up your cross daily and follow me"Luke 9:23.

Therefore, "purge the evil person from among you"1 Corinthians 5:13. Do not tolerate an unchanged believer–as if God's Spirit had no effect. This is tantamount to saying the Spirit of Christ is ineffectual, or that believing in the sufficiency of Scripture, we nevertheless live in an insufficiency.

Instead, when God's Spirit comes into a person, they will be convicted, they will desire godliness and hate sin, their eyes will be open to understanding Scripture, they will be led by the Spirit, and sin's power will lose its hold on them. This is the victory of God's gospel, however marred it might look before perfection has come. Jesus asked us to pray for God's will to be done on earth, and said his disciples would do what he did: we ought not to live as though God has no power any more.

Victory without forgiveness

I have heard that some are feeding the poor, yet are not doing so in the name of Christ out of shame. They must sharply reprimanded. Where does all of life come from? Every breath? All of what is good? Whether the world thinks we are wonderful or repulsive, we ought to look to the One only and ask what He thinks of us.

Social good can have great value, yet without Christ's message and way of life, it is neutered. Learn from others where recipients don't even realise you are Christians–affirming to themselves there are still good atheists in the world. But social work is not strictly for evangelism–a means to an end–but good because God made all good, and thus we're walking in his pattern. We're glorifying God.

Thus, doing good is not about political victory, if Christian politics is defined as establishing some form of state church. Rather, our every act is obedience to Christ, and our every act is living Christ's life out. We ought therefore to expect an elevation of women in society, following Jesus' example–but we don't pin our ultimate hope on it. We should expect the poor to be lifted out of poverty–but are not downtrodden when they are not. In everything, we strive to glorify God and live out his light, which without sin and the devil and the curse would create and sustain abundant life–even while knowing the Second Coming and final defeat of sin and death is yet to come.

Forgiveness with reflective victory

You are forgiven! Therefore, you are free: but not to live your own life. Rather, we were bought with a price, and therefore in a real sense enslaved to Christ. Free to do Christ's will, but not our own.

You have the Spirit! Therefore, you will be transformed into Christ's likeness. You cannot remain the same, for you were made for a purpose to be Christ's spotless bride.

You are the Body of Christ! Therefore, we will live together differently–and this is politics: group dynamics. In fact, the way we will live will show Christ. When you marry, you show the marriage of the bride and the groom–that is, the church and Christ. When you eat, you show the fellowship of heaven. When you sleep, you show the restorative nurture of God's creation. When you talk, you tell of God's wonders. When you work, you work with God's creativity and strength. When you restore a friendship, you show God's peace. Whatever we do, we reflect God's glory–unless of course we sin, in which case we reflect our own corruption, and the influence of the devil. Now, then, be encouraged to preach and mentor and workshop in the area of group dynamics.

Therefore we can no longer restrict the gospel to something we've 'done' years ago, or to a few concepts we must believe, or to the wonder of a judgment paid in full. Instead, the gospel is even more powerful and wonderful in that it establishes a reign of God in and through our lives, that oozes God into everything we do and who we are. It will only ever be 'reflective' victory, and not complete, at least until Christ comes again–nevertheless, to ignore the political and social ramifications of Christ's work is to deny the power of God to change our lives. And these good works must flow from lives steeped in Jesus.