Good works is a good thing but I believe those who think they will get you into Heaven is denial of everything Jesus did for us - as those who tried to keep following the old way were told, "Ye have fallen from Grace"....
God Bless again.
And that grace was the grace that superabounded when sin abounded. There isn’t any viable excuse that “oh, we’re out of water” when we realize that it has come time to bathe.
Oh, some PEOPLE can be very dry about grace. But that’s their problem with God. It doesn’t have to be my problem, or your problem.
I believe Calvin nailed some important points, even at the cost of emphasizing Romans (a book largely about God’s rights) over other biblical books that fill in details which are important in living the life bestowed by Christ.
And there are matters of relative emphasis. God is love; God has glory. The one is even more fundamental than the other. It is love which moves God to bestow glory, in a merciful manner, upon a race that in a mysterious manner (hinted at by the Garden story) chose to be very inglorious before they were incarnated themselves.
I try to handle it as carefully as I can. But dog my cat, I have a big heart, to the point of being very awkward with it. I think of trying to park a monster truck downtown.
And our reaction upon meeting that grace is very telling. It would be weeping, eventually joined by, then replaced by, laughing. All in gratitude.
And I venture to go all the way round to why I posted here... I venture this is what a redneck could do in Connecticut or anywhere else on the globe.
I answered my own question in principle. The practice is now to find the best way, if the issue is unavoidable. Selfishly perhaps, though in mercy God may grant it, I don’t even want to have to go. But if I went, I know that God could find a way to turn Connecticut into (as the old song about Manhattan also went) an “isle of joy.”
[But if I went, I know that God could find a way to turn Connecticut into (as the old song about Manhattan also went) an “isle of joy.”]
And here’s where my dreams run wild. Imagine getting to Connecticut, making it okay in the job, then suddenly my songs hit the big time, bigger than I had dared to dream. Publishers are mobbing me and my performing songwriting partner. Being close to the Big Apple becomes a big plus in that. I “retire” (actually shift my career to song writing) to a Connecticut farm, fulfilling another dream.
Now wouldn’t that be a Yankee redneck yeehaw?
Pray for me, for success.
And for the sake of FReepdom... I run for their governor under GOP... and win. Reconnect Connecticut, or something like that, would be my motto. Confidence comes back to the GOP there, a formerly badly enscandaled party.
Well all things in due time, in due time. Scads and scads and scads of devils to fight on the way to being able to do anything even close to that. One step at a time. I might not even go. God may have better things yet planned. I know that He can.