{"id":12071,"date":"2025-02-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/?p=12071"},"modified":"2025-02-05T11:00:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T18:00:57","slug":"sinners-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/?p=12071","title":{"rendered":"Sinners All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Always Needing God\u2019s Grace<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Saturday 1 February 2025<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Hell Fires Burn Hot<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already for us in this life<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we think we can earn our way free from them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only by God\u2019s Grace<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel 12:2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Romans 14:9<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words of Grace For Today<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At my father\u2019s funeral the pastor gave a heartwarming eulogy using the image of a table around which his father welcomed so many different kinds of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we accept that God judges us according to how good we are, what good we think, say, and do while alive, then the pastor set us up to be thankful that my father passed into everlasting life because he met the criteria needed, instead of being judged lacking and therefore passed into everlasting shame and contempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except that is not at all how we believe God judges us, not at all, not at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We trust that Jesus lives, loves, dies, and rises from the dead to clearly demonstrate to us how much God always loves us, and that love includes that Jesus saves us from judgment according to our sins. Rather Jesus\u2019 record replaces ours, and by grace alone we live and die in God\u2019s favour, blessed, and equipped to be God\u2019s love and forgiveness for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later it became heart-rendingly obvious that the pastor did not once mention that my father was a sinner, who made his share of mistakes, who God loved, who Jesus died to save, and who the Holy Spirit equipped to do the good things he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which made me sad, for myself and everyone else at the funeral, having missed that during his funeral. And it made me sad for the pastor, who close to retirement, did not provide the one clear message of God\u2019s love that we receive and have to share, giving hope even in the face of death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we leave no room for God\u2019s love and grace we do not honour the real person, or God\u2019s promises to us and for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we then try to create a similar false version of life for ourselves, a living, lying eulogy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s pray we do not,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and trust that God will forgive us when we do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Always Needing God\u2019s Grace Saturday 1 February 2025 Hell Fires Burn Hot Already for us in this life When we think we can earn our way free from them. Only by God\u2019s Grace Daniel 12:2 Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to … Continue reading “Sinners All”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fire","category-grace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12071"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12109,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12071\/revisions\/12109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}