Tension and Faith: Grace and God's Instructions or Commands

Okay, let's start today with a quick question.  Who here has never, ever, exceeded the speed limit at any time in their life?  (You can bet that my hand isn't raised!)  We think about things like speed limits more as suggestions, until that officer appears in the median or along the side street, radar gun at the ready.  And then, when he pulls us over, we really hope that he'll show some grace to us.

One of the tensions that we face in our faith life is the tension between doing what God says and realizing that our lives are lived completely in His grace.  God makes it clear in the Bible that we are to take what He says seriously.  He even outlined consequences at various times in the life of His people for when they would go against what He said.

Now, part of our trouble with this is a translation problem from one language to another.  A lot of what gets translated into English as "command" actually falls more in line with "instruction".  For example, when God gives Moses the ten writings on the stone tablets, they are God's instruction.  Yet, we often find that word translated as command, and so we tend to take what God says as the way He created us to live more as though it is "Do it God's way or hit the highway."

Yet, the one thing God makes clear is that we cannot do all of that perfectly, thanks to the sin and imperfection passed down from Adam and Eve.  We now live and receive good from God because He is gracious and loving toward us.  In our imperfection, we cannot do anything as He instructed anymore than a cracked jar can hold water.  We live completely by His grace, both now and forever.

 This places us in an interesting place.  We are to take God's commands/instructions seriously, and yet, we live completely by His grace.  To stress one is to take away from the other, which we are not supposed to do (and yes, I even noticed the leaning toward our "doing" in that last phrase).  Grace, and God's commands.  A necessary tension which we will never get exactly right as long as we live in this world.