Dear God,

Now I'm the one struggling with the once-saved-always-saved theology. Question: What do we have to do to be forgiven? Just accept it? Really? I don't see how that is! If that's it, why do we still try to please you? Lord, we know we've done wrong. And we know we need to make up for it.

Here's another question: why? Why is punishment needed for doing bad stuff? I know that's just an accepted fact everywhere. But why? I've never asked that question before. Why do we need to be punished? And what defines good and bad things?

I know You are good. But where do Your standards for "good" come from? I know You always were and are--but how can I comprehend that?

(Looks in Genesis 2-3 for answers.)

"...But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die."

Oh! He was looking out for our GOOD. Why would we want to die?? Oftentimes we look at Genesis 2:17 and we don't get past the "you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil", demand why not, and forget the rest: "Or you will surely die." He really is looking out for our good.

But then... Why did You create the tree of the knowledge of good and evil if You knew we'd be tempted to eat from it? If You knew we shouldn't eat from it? Why?

Did You truly master all this just to show us Your love through Jesus?

But not everyone gets to know Your love for us through Jesus.

So then... Why bother??

And then there's the mystery of Satan/the serpent/Lucifer. What the heck? Why would You let that happen in the first place? Okay, free will... But for Your angels? O God, why? You are so hard to understand! Will You answer all my questions when I get to heaven? Or better yet, here on earth?

Yours,
Stephanie

I wrote this prayer today in my prayer journal. Kind of an interesting thought... Doubts do not equal the end of your salvation.

This all started from the devotional I read today... I don't have it here in front of me, but it was about accepting God's forgiveness. We try so hard to please Him and say, "Here, God! See how good I'm being? This is my payment, this is what I'm doing to gain your forgiveness--so please forgive me!"

"And we forget that Jesus already paid," the devo said.

That thought really struck me. Jesus already paid the price--we don't have to go through all the offering of gifts to God so we can be forgiveness. Isn't that a crazy thought? It's true, we DO have an instinct to pay people back when we do something wrong to them. I don't know why, but that's how we are. But God doesn't ask for payment anymore. (He did ask payment of Israel in the Old Testament. Then Jesus came and paid the final price.) And, this is something learned from my Biblical Studies class, the reason I and other Christians act so "good" is not because we are trying to gain God's favor or blessing. It's our response to God's (crazy) willingness to forgive us--a thank-you offering.

I don't smile all the time and be nice to everyone and forgive and love and all that stuff because I'm trying to gain God's forgiveness (at least not anymore; I used to be like that), or make Him smile down on me and say, "Hey, that Stephanie girl is really nice to people. I think I'll bless her." No way! I do that because 1) I love them, 2) God was great/wonderful enough to forgive me completely. (And I really don't deserve that!! As I have been saying--He is crazy to love us so much; I don't understand it at all.)

And, just for clarification: God isn't actually crazy, even though I express it like that. :) He just loves us like crazy. I mean, from human standards, it must take someone clinically insane to love us humans so much!!

Wow, I've really gone off on a tangent. :D I think this'll be my entry for the day.

Oh wait! I wanted to say one more thing, about my prayer: isn't it interesting how a Christian can have hard questions about God? The thing that marks me (and other Christians with similar tough questions) as different from those doubting God who have never known Him, however, is that I don't worry overmuch about finding the answers. I believe/trust that I will get answers to my questions eventually. It may take till heaven--though I hope not :)--but I do know I'll get the answers eventually.

-Stephanie