I call it the Lutheran two-step. God acts. We respond. The first
step is God’s whereby the grace of God leads without any help from us. God acts
out of God’s own being which is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and
abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 145:8) and God’s own desire to “be the one who
is just and the one who justifies.” (Romans 326) It’s a done deal and cannot be
reversed for in the person of Jesus we see the lengths that God will go to
convince us that we are loved. You don’t have to be afraid of a God that you
can strip naked and nail to a piece of wood. Of course, you don’t have to listen
to a God you can kill unless on the third day that same God says “Ta
Da!” and walks out of the grave as good as new. The second step is ours. Do we follow
God’s lead and deny death any power over us including those deaths we die every
day by believing worldly passions can deliver and in believing the lie give ourselves over to impious
attitudes and behaviors or do we dance with “the one who brung ya” and become
zealous for good deeds? The grace of God is that the first step is not dependent
on the second and even if we have the proverbial two left feet God’s lead is
more than able to overcome or lack of rhythm.
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