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Friday, March 29, 2024 - 12:29 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

… So the song says. And see which one is dominant?

Do is in the land of command. It is avoidance of error. It is concerned with what others think. It seeks to reach heaven by works, by man’s merit. It struggles to “be” salt and light.

Be doesn’t worry about Do. It just is. It IS salt and it IS light. The salt does nothing to become salt (though one can spoil it by “doing,” making it unsavory and worthless) and the light does nothing to become light (though one can hide it by “doing,” placing it under a bushel basket so that the world can no longer see what it is). It is state of being, not action verbs.

Jesus invites us to His ecclesia not on the basis of anything that we have done or can do. He has already done it all. All of His righteousness He freely gives to those who, yes, DO one thing – BElieve in Him alone to DO all that we need done. His righteousness thus becomes our righteousness. God forever thereafter cannot see us on the basis of what we DO but only as who we are – what we have BEcome – on the basis of what His Son has done for us.

Some still teach that we are to climb some staircase to heaven … that we are to cross over Jordan by our own works. Impossible. All that we need to cross over has already been done for us.

Do rests on degrees and titles, accomplishments and platitudes, status and seniority.

Be rests on nothing but the blood of Christ.

Do focuses on going and joining and performing good works.

Be praises God to be a sinner saved by grace.

Do scolds and disapproves, curries favor and demands respect.

Be just looks up into the face of a loving God.

Do seeks a salvation where Jesus needs our help.

Be knows it is all and only Him.

Do argues.

Be praises.

Do is tradition.

Be is spirit and inspiration.

Do (in that it points toward the day when it eventually can do no more) leads to death.

Be is life.

Do participates.

Be partakes.

Do is a spectator.

Be is a species.

Do has to do in order to find something that it can call its “identity.”

Be has actual identity that requires no “do.”

It is only in the realm of DOING that one can commit error, for no error can change what / who one IS – what one is BEING.

Do engenders pride, for it is one’s accomplishment.

Be, rather, contains gratitude to be made so.

Those who live in DO will always be frustrated, for they can never DO enough.

Those who realize BE can live life calmly, knowing there is no DO requirement.

We who are believers have been adopted by the Creator of the Universe! We are declared to be His sons! Why would any think, then, that they must DO something to become sons, to prove that they are sons, or to become better sons? No! He has already done it ALL! There is nothing more that we can DO! It is all already DONE for us, and we rest in Him!

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