From the Level of Instinct to the Level of Grace
I have sometimes said that there are three levels of life on which men live: the level of instinct, the level of conscience. and the level of grace. The personal pronouns and verbs which go with these are. “I want,” “I ought” and “I am guided.”
The lower level represents the place where we get what we desire, live as we choose, take what we like.
The next level represents the place where we scruple, where we follow duty. Where we behave ourselves and obey the law.
The third level represents the place where we have gotten above conscience and instinct alike, where desire and duty coincide, where the will of God has become our meat and drink, where we are at the beck and call of the Holy Spirit and where “His service is perfect freedom.”
I need not remind you that there are a great many Christians who think, not in three levels, but in two: good and evil; and they fit everybody into them. It is easy to know what to do with [those] who live for the present and the body and this world: they live by instinct. But can we lump the conscientious and the guided all in one? I think not.
Saul was as conscientious as he could be, but he was also as wrong as he could be. So were the Pharisees. So are all the I legalists from that time forward. So far as I can see, Jesus was just as anxious to get us up from the level of conscience to the level of grace, as He was to get us from the level of instinct to the level of grace.
–Samuel M. Shoemaker, From the book:
The Genius of Fellowship
Used by Permission from Healing-Habits.com
But, I thing, the first step to knowing one is wrong...is to admit that one is.
Georg