Guilt Trip

Jesus gave us life. He gave us eternal life, as we were meant to have it from the beginning. He restored our birthright to us. It was a gift. We all know that. He came, He conquered, He lives, we live through the grace that He provided. A gift. He said it is finished, and it is finished. End of story. Done. A done deal.

A gift:  the transfer of something without the expectation of receiving something in return.

Say you are a teenager who, like all teenagers, love to drive. Your Dad comes to you one day, gives you a set of keys to a beautiful car, and tells you, "I got you a gift! She's all yours! Enjoy!" WOW!!! How cool would that be and how excited would you be? Now....suppose a week goes by and you are leaving to go for a drive in your beautiful new car. And suppose on your way out the door your Dad calls you back and says, "Where are you going?" and you tell him you are going out for a drive in the beautiful new car he gave you. Dad comes back at you with this, "Well, if you are going to keep that car then there are some things you need to do for me. I want you in church every Sunday. And you need to keep your room clean. Maybe then I will let you go for that drive!"
"What??"  And it suddenly hits you like a ton of bricks that your Dad's supposed "gift" has strings attached. In fact, Dad is going to use it to get you to do what He wants. He will guilt you into living as he wants you to live, every time using the gift he gave you as leverage. Wow. That sort of takes away the giddy feeling you originally had. Maybe even makes you want to give him the car back!

We received our Salvation, our life....as a gift. It was freely given by our Heavenly Father through His Son's obedience. And it was all finished....left there on the Cross.
But then...because we struggle believing that we could ever truly receive anything without strings attached, we start to place a guilt trip on ourselves and on others. Yes, it was free but now we have to do something, anything, to keep the gift. It is subtle, but it creeps in and begins to rob us of the giddy feeling we originally had.

How many messages have we heard telling us we must "do" more to get more of God? My Bible tells me how to receive His fullness, by experiencing His love!
"May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God." (NLT) Wow! That is amazing. I receive God's fullness....as I become rooted and grounded in love. Part of my being grounded in love is believing that God is a loving Father to me. And believing that He gave me a free gift with no guilt trip attached. That kinda makes me giddy just thinking about it, and it should!!

If our goal is to make disciples, then it would seem to me that the best way to do so would be to remind them constantly of the reality, of the scandalous free gift of grace which they have been given by a generous God who IS love and loves them dearly.
Instead we fear this message, we believe we must now convince them to work to stay in God's good graces.
There seems to be so many teachings right now on things that we must "do" to be acceptable to Him. Sometimes they are worded as steps we must go through, in order to have "more" of Him. It is almost like God is seen with a grace pitcher, and initially He pours out a little drop of grace in us to get our attention, but then in order for us to fully receive all of Him we must work hard and follow these steps and then He'll pour out a little bit more, then a little bit more.....until....what? We are full? When are we full? How do we know when we are full? What is the capping point of God? And why are the steps that we must follow different depending on who is preaching the message?
Ultimately we teach that Salvation was a gift, but maintaining it takes a lot of work and effort on our part.

I don't think God is into giving us grace, then giving us a guilt trip. I know, Jesus was Jewish and Jewish mothers have a reputation of laying guilt on their children to get what they want. I just don't believe Jesus is like that. And I want to live gracefully...and eternally giddy for His fullness in my life.
"And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace...." (John 1:16)