The Sound of Grace [ 6]

The Sound Of Grace...
Verse 21, “Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.”
Verse 23, “They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”
Verse 26, “Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.”
Verse 27, “Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”
How dare some churches say that homosexuality is okay when God is it is an abomination? But the grace of God teaches us to say “No” to these things. Not “Maybe,” not “Later,” not “Let me think about it,” but “No.” In one of his sermons, Robert Smith says that the devil wants you just to dance a little dance with him. I dream of the day when our “yes” will be “yes” and our “no” will be an emphatic “no.” Not being apologetic for what we believe.
We all like the rescue of grace, but how do we do in the school of grace? Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. . . . Costly grace calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
What else does grace teach us? “To live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” In his book Paul and the Law, Frank Thielman writes, “Paul can even say that a primary result of salvation is that people might ‘live sober, righteous and pious lives in this present time.’”