It was March 14, 2016, and this day's devotional message was titled, Gods Grace Covers Your Guilt. Loaded Christian sounding words and terminology, like, "guilt" and talking about how "grace covers," it even mentions, "God." It almost could have been a news headline taken right out of the Bible. It sounds biblical, but read the message in the light of gospel truth and you will discover, it's not!
It might be correct to understand from the scriptures how it is that "God's grace covers your guilt," but the grace of God, being the amazing thing it is, does not begin and end there. God's grace really does so much more than merely bring a person happiness in this life. In reading Rick Warren's publication about how God's Grace Covers Your Guilt, one finds it is a message void of the simple truth: that Jesus Christ died to give you God's gift, the gift of forgiveness for sin and eternal life.
Rick's concept of Jesus wants followers, and in exchange, you get to escape that nagging feeling that you find makes you unhappy.... "guilt."
It might be correct to understand from the scriptures how it is that "God's grace covers your guilt," but the grace of God, being the amazing thing it is, does not begin and end there. God's grace really does so much more than merely bring a person happiness in this life. In reading Rick Warren's publication about how God's Grace Covers Your Guilt, one finds it is a message void of the simple truth: that Jesus Christ died to give you God's gift, the gift of forgiveness for sin and eternal life.
Rick's concept of Jesus wants followers, and in exchange, you get to escape that nagging feeling that you find makes you unhappy.... "guilt."
"Even if there were no eternity, it would be worth it to become a follower of Jesus in order to escape the guilt."
(And please note, Rick also does in fact talk about "sin." Now you cannot rightly say that Rick Warren never talks about "sin." He indeed does. "Sin" however, is not reason God became man and dwelt among us. If you listen to Rick, he will not tell you that God was concerned with the fact that people would die in their sins and be eternally separated from him forever because of it.... instead , God didn;t want people, like you, walking around feeling guilty.....
No joke:
No joke:
"Sin brings guilt.... God doesn’t want you to walk around feeling guilty. That’s why God sent Jesus to the cross to die for all of your sins."
Rick Warren,
God’s Grace Covers Your Guilt, Daily Hope with Rick Warren, MARCH 14, 2016
God felt sad about you feeling bad...feeling guilty all the time, so he sent Jesus to die so that your guilt (due to sin, ) would stop making you miserable
Rick does inform you that "sin" happens, but it's apparently not the problem to be reckoned with. The problem, the main problem that plagues all humanity, the problem that is "basic to the human existence," (according to Rick,) is the nagging feeling of "guilt." It's such a bad thing... (guilt) that, like satan, it tempts us.
Rick explains:
Rick does inform you that "sin" happens, but it's apparently not the problem to be reckoned with. The problem, the main problem that plagues all humanity, the problem that is "basic to the human existence," (according to Rick,) is the nagging feeling of "guilt." It's such a bad thing... (guilt) that, like satan, it tempts us.
Rick explains:
"Guilt is basic to the human existence. Since no one is perfect, we all are tempted by guilt over our past mistakes."
Guilt is a problem, but guilt does not "tempt" a person, evil desires do that. (James 1:14)
Furthermore, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, guilt actually works in us to show us our need for forgiveness, our need for a savior. In fact, it's far better to feel guilty over a sin and know you need a savior than to have no remorse over the wrongs things we do or have done. And sin, (not guilt), is basic to human existence. Sin is humanity's problem. We inheirited it from Adam. While Rick tells the reader that sin causes guilt..... he then does a slick switch-a-oo and directs the reader to think that guilt, your feelings of guilt. not sin, is the problem.
Warren also works to explain how Jesus removed the condemnation we are under before God. Rick says:
"No condemnation” means God doesn’t judge you for all you’ve done wrong if you’ve trusted Christ because Jesus took that judgment upon himself on the cross. God doesn’t have to judge you because Jesus was judged. He doesn’t have to condemn you because Jesus took your condemnation....."It's true. This is what Jesus Christ did and it is good news indeed, straight from the preserved pages of scripture, but as Warren continues explaining this concept of Jesus' atonement...Christ's death for our sin, Him in our place, it is delivered to us with no hope of there being such a thing as eternity or the realization that all of our sins are forgiven. He does not even talk about how great it is to be reconciled to God. Instead, what we have is the ability to sin, without the guilt:
".... That means you don’t need the guilt. Notice that it doesn’t say that after you become a Christian, you won’t sin. You’ll still sin. You’ll still make mistakes. You’ll still fail and look stupid. But Jesus has paid the price for those failures. You are free from guilt!"
Rick Warren,
God’s Grace Covers Your Guilt, Daily Hope with Rick Warren, MARCH 14, 2016
Rick's message about how God cares about how you feel can be of some comfort. After all, God does care about you. It's true. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life. It's also true that following Jesus is a good thing. However, it does remain quite remarkable that Rick Warren, given half a chance will work really hard verbally to circumvents real faith issues, like, how Jesus was born and he died to save us all from sin and that by faith in him, all your sin is washed away.
