Usually we associate Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) with people who repeatedly wash their hands or check door locks. However, there is a category of OCD that just might be the fruit of one’s theology. These people are doubters and are afraid that if everything isn’t perfect or done just right they will be punished or worse lost for all eternity. It has been my lot to have known many such people through the years. Perhaps it was birds of a feather.
One has to tread lightly here because it would be so easy to leave the impression it doesn’t matter and we can be saved in our sins. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We are saved from our sins and the legal consequences. With that as a preface I want to assure each of you that Jesus telling us to call God, Our Father, has enormous implications. Parents are so delighted to see their children grow. (I always wished it would have taken twice as long. They left way too soon for me.) There was never an expectation that once they started to walk they would never teeter and fall. Getting up and falling down is just part of the process. Our heavenly Father is so pleased that we want to walk. And just as we did not disown our children when they fell, neither does God disown us. He knows our capabilities. He knows our weaknesses.
We are saved by grace from our past and our future. Ephesians 2 says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega of our salvation. Dump the OCD.
Written by Roger Bothwell on March 22, 2012
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org