I have been enjoying reading Urban Pastor’s blog – he’s based at Christ Church Balham (London). Today he wrote,

But increasingly I’m finding that people are troubled by the ‘ought’ of the Christian life. They have an idea of the Christian life in which the second half of Paul’s epistles should be left out. It’s all about what God has done for us in Christ and it’s not what we do in response. That’s overstating it a little. But that’s the sense of it.  The idea that there are obligations placed upon us as we follow Christ is something that people think undermines grace. Grace has become the ‘catch all’ term for God’s acceptance of us whatever we’re like. I want to defend that. God’s grace does mean that we receive what we don’t deserve; namely eternal acceptance through Christ’s imputed righteousness (Romans 8:1). But God’s grace is not only limited to saving us, by his grace he changes us. In Titus 1:1 Paul teaches that the knowledge of the truth will lead to godliness. God’s not done with us at conversion. He wants to sanctify us to become like his son.

Read the rest of Running the Race

It got me thinking again. A couple of weeks ago I was preaching on the Good Samaritan and was particularly struck by the words of Jesus at the end of the parable, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).

It seems pretty clear to me that as Christians we can just sit back and wait, we have a command to go and do. In the parable it meant getting involved with someone from the other part of town, sacrificing time and money, and showing genuine concern and care.

Yes, I have a lot of growing in this area to go too.