Mtr Kelli Joyce

“...if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments.”

Dear friends in Christ,

The Bible often puts concepts I love and concepts I struggle with in close proximity to one another. These three verses from 1 John are a good example - they’re a roller-coaster. “Don’t sin. If you do, though, Jesus will go to bat for you. That’s because Jesus’ life and death were a sacrifice for your sins. But not just for your sins! For everybody’s sins! So... do what he says, and don’t sin.”

It goes back and forth between law and grace so quickly it can make your head spin.

It can be made sense of, though. The grace and the law aren’t in contradiction, they’re point and counterpoint, and together they harmonize to bring a balanced understanding of God’s justice and God’s mercy, and the ways they coexist and work together for the good of humanity and all creation.

The incarnation - the birth, teaching, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth - was God’s free and unearned gift to the whole world. It is only through Christ that we have the hope of salvation from the power of sin and death. God has done for us what we could never do for ourselves, no matter how well we might behave. It’s grace.

And as a part of this free plan of salvation, God calls us to grow in holiness, living lives of righteousness and justice. This process of growth in holiness isn’t a precondition of God’s love, or a standard we have to measure up to in order to “stay saved.” It’s not a burden or an occasion for shame or an expectation of perfection - it’s a relationship, wherein Jesus desires for us to become closer and closer to him, and to live lives that are freer and freer from the chains of selfishness and pride and greed and wrath that keep us from the joy and peace we were created for. It’s law, but it’s a law meant to free us, and it’s a law we are invited into with the aid of the Holy Spirit - not a long checklist of “dos” and “don’ts” we have to struggle alone to master.

Praise God for saving us without regard for how good we are at keeping the law, and praise God for loving us enough to call us to lives of wholeness and integrity and holiness.

In peace,
Mtr. Kelli