It’s interesting.  On TV last night was a special about Radical Islam.  The opening portion of the show was to demonstrate how most Muslims live deeply faithful lives, and are not in fact violent.  However, the sect which has grown into a vengeful, terrorist sect of the Islamic faith has gained most of the attention.  This was ultimately the focus of the show.  I don’t intend to compliment the zeal of these Radical Muslims in any way – I rather believe their stated faith in the name of Allah as a cloak for acts of hatred and Jihad are wrong in many ways.  It is terribly sad to me that this takes place and children of my kindergartner’s age are already chanting prose and poetry of hatred toward the west and the great Satan.  Many of them can already quote books and books of the Quran.  I must respect the zeal which is centered on the Quran’s teachings.  As a Christian, I certainly don’t agree doctrinally with the Quran; but the fervor of the faithful to be pleasing to Allah is certainly a type of faith worth emulating.  This is not the story with the radical Muslims who have taken license to cause terror.  It was evident on (what I believe to be) the best TV show on the air, “Criminal Minds” last week, that almost all of the terrorism taking place in the name of Jihad is retribution, revenge, and deep sealed hatred that is only justifiable by twisting their Quran scriptures.

But as adamant as I am against terrorism – and especially terrorism cloaked in faith, I would be a fool not to take a lesson from it.  How many books of the Scripture can I quote, much less my kindergarten son quote?  Oh he knows the lessons, and frankly I’d put him up against any other kindergartner in a theological debate.  He can whip out, “huh uh… that doesn’t make God happy,” or “that’s not like Jesus” as good as anybody.  But most of us Americans have no clue about the role of faith and it’s depth to the people of the East.  God’s people need to become radical.  We need an hour of prayer, or rather hours of prayer.  We who claim Christ is the only way to God must be radical practitioners of piety.  What ever happened to holiness?  Not just resisting temptation, and staying “out of” trouble, but being proactive to prune our spiritual lives into growing, blossoms of life?  Not to mention the simple things like manners, politeness, candor, and couth…

I know I need to change.  I have so far to go, and yet I need to “catch up” with my lost time of wastefulness, and become a pillar of holiness in my family.  If you’re reading this, please pray for me to do that.  I don’t plan to preach any great sermon on the Capitol steps or the Washington Mall, but I need to become radical.  God knows, we all need to, and perhaps if his people rise up and be holy, Christ would be clearly seen as the true Messiah by all; the Immanuel. 

According to many in the postmodern religious world, grace is us climbing up a ladder toward an intimate relationship with God, and getting close to the top, only to not have enough rungs on the ladder.  God reaches down and yanks us up…

According to scripture, grace is not God’s yanking us up when we can go no farther, it’s the ladder.  We sin often, and it is in our nature as humans to sin.  Not that we can’t choose to resist, and not that we’re born guilty of sin as many with Calvinistic bent would postulate.  But we’re human… and it is so much our nature in a fallen world, that Christ “emptied himself” and became like us.  In this, he experienced life as one of us – to truly be an appropriate sacrifice for us (Philippians 2).  As a human, Jesus prayed to the Father, indicating a need for that relationship.  In Galilee he wept over the casket (or tomb) of his dear friend Lazarus before raising him to God’s glory (John 11).  In the temple, he was filled with anger and drove the entrepreneurs and traders out of his Father’s house of worship with a whip.  In the garden, he begged God to let the cup of suffering pass from him on the night before his crucifixion.  He was… human.  But the New Testament tells us he was sinless.  He suffered and died so that he could learn obedience and take our place in punishment… that, is GRACE.

Unlike the understanding I acquired growing up, the first Epistle of John says, “if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His son, ‘purifies us’ from all sins.”  Some taught that there were all sorts of sins – and that I was just as guilty for sins I didn’t know about, but I had still committed.  I often lived in fear that if I did not beg for God’s forgiveness as the last thing before bed every night, I was no longer in his good graces… or more appropriately, in His Grace. 

Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Oh I can be separated from God and need to repent, for sure.  And I have been separate from God – and it was because of my own selfish sinful practices.  But when we walk in faith, we will falter, and we will fail.  When we walk in faith, we will allow ourselves to stretch out, and when we walk in faith, the Holy Spirit will guard our hearts and minds (Rom. 5).  The Spirit gives us peace, and if we allow ourselves to be empty jars of clay for God’s use, his Spirit will empower us in our daily walk.  That is grace!  That is holiness, and that is a life of faith. 

John also said in 1 John 3:6-9 that if Christ “abides” in us (or ‘remains’ in the Greek, denoting a location, or a place of presence) we cannot sin.  Knowing from many other passages in the N.T. that we cannot go without sin for long as humans, this must mean that my daily walk  is in my mindset, my habits, and my practices; not merely in my individual sinful act when I become weak.  This is JOY for a Christian.  It’s the fact that the eternal victory of Jesus is stronger than my individual failure.  Father, forgive my lack of faith and help me to be a vessel of honor, that I may walk in the Spirit and have life and peace (Rom. 5:8).