“Now this is just part of it in anything you do, you’re given an assignment, the parameters are defined and you’re asked to fulfill those. Number one you must hear the definition of it, number two you must understand it, then you can do it. But you can’t do it without the first two. The same thing is true with a Christian, you can’t just try to get people to behave in a certain manner unless they understand the parameters and definition of what it is that they’re asked to do. And yet you know it’s a sad thing but it’s true, church after church after church after church people will get up and they’ll tell people what to do but they never give them the parameters or an understanding of what it is that they’re really doing. You know you get up and you exhort people to live the Christian life and do what’s right and live for God and get dedicated, consecrated, irrigated, whatever it is you know, it goes on and on, and try to get them to live it up and you, you really are, you’re working on them from the standpoint of sort of a half time pep talk every Sunday, to try to jack them up again and get them rolling, see? Or else you put them under a guilt trip and they begin to feel like they’re just really-they’ve got to do this or God is going to be right on them see? And so they get to feel guilty or you intimidate them or there’s a certain – peer pressure exerted on them and if they don’t function they’re not one of the in group, see? And all of this by-passes the real motive for living the Christian life, the real guts of it, the real heart of it, the real base of it is simply understanding who you are in Christ. That’s the base, knowing your position.”
from gty.org
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