Religion

When you look up the word grace in a dictionary there are a lot of definitions, but the one that has stuck with me over time is:

• freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.

Most in the Baptist tradition would say that if you accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, believing that he is the son of God, died as atonement for your sin, and some would add a genuine confession of your sins and repentance to that equation, then you will be "saved" - living in a state of grace and destined for heaven.

Well, I have a couple of thoughts:

1. If you have to make all these mental decisions or confessions, then it seems to me that salvation is not quite so much "grace" as it is a special state achievable by meeting a bunch of conditions;
2. Requires a lot of mental gymnastics. This equation requires a lot of "believing." Personally, I have all kinds of periods of doubt and questions.
3. I get confused by simple direct statements about God. Sometimes you will hear that God loves everyone and everything. Then you will hear that God's salvation or grace is God's unmerited love and that not everyone is receiving this unmerited love. Maybe I'm just dense, but it seems to me that we create a logical disconnect in our descriptions of God; and
4. Finally, it seems that we confuse just what is the Kingdom of God... Is it some afterlife in heaven or is it a time in the future after Jesus returns or is it right now? Personally, I can't do much about if/when Jesus returns and heaven is a pretty vague concept with vague description. It seems to me that concentrating on the concept of Kingdom of God as a part of the here and now is a better use of my mental and spiritual energies. I'll let the other stuff take care of itself.

I did finish reading the book by Atkinson, RealLivePreacher.com. It was very good. Good writing.