“I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.”-God through Isaiah; Romans 10:20 ESV
A person does not have to hear a specific message, say a specific prayer or go to a specific church to find God. You don’t have to ask the right questions or look in the right places. Longevity doesn’t give you an edge. Your parents can’t nurse you in. You can’t be sorry enough, be selfless enough or want it bad enough. You don’t have to want it at all. You don’t have to know anything to know the truth. God busts through people, convention and manners to get to you. People will give you criteria, God will reveal it’s uselessness. People will doubt your sincerity, God doesn’t wait for your sincerity.
You can’t do enough. You can’t want enough. You can’t be sincere enough. You can’t ask enough. There is nothing you can do.
That’s why He does it for you.
‘…not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are…‘ -1 Corinthians 1:26-28 ESV
A friend of mine, Leonard Sweet, posted a facebook update yesterday. The question in it sharpened me. He was talking about a moment in his own life when someone asked him this and it was a ‘game changer’ for him.
“What is it in your life it takes Jesus to explain?”
You can answer this directly if you want, but that leaves too much room open to not think about it. If you don’t think about it, then you get answers like ‘everything.’ But, that’s not true. It sounds religious, but it’s void of depth. It makes my mind wander and I think about all the other things religion has copied and wonder if religion has copied emotion, too. But, that’s just a side note. Answers like ‘everything’ could very well be true, but if it really were the case, you would have specifics to choose from. ‘Everything’ or other equally ‘nothing’ responses are so distant and detached, it’s hard for me to believe that there’s anything there. Mainly because when there is something there, you aren’t blase about it.
I spend a lot of time listening to people tell me how they can’t forgive themselves for their mistakes. Most people are able to believe in forgiveness for others, but not themselves. What I have learned along the way is that the biggest obstacle in the way of forgiving yourself is the people around you. People are waiting for ‘permission’ from others before they can forgive themselves, accept God’s grace and move on into freedom.
There is a fear if they accept God’s grace and start to let go of their past, that there will be people who are not ready for their freedom or joy. They’re right. There are people who, no matter how much time has gone by or how much God has done in your life, will only see your mistakes when they look at you.
I have heard about someone in my own community who has a hard time seeing me ‘happy’. She says it’s not because she doesn’t want me to be happy, but it just makes her angry to think that I am. She can only see my sin and it’s been years since I’ve been free and happy. I won’t reserve my freedom until she or anyone else is on board. I won’t get self-righteous and indignant toward her either. There will always be those people and you can’t let them determine who you are.
You can’t limit your relationship with Jesus due to fear of what people will think. This sounds like a middle school youth group message where the ‘people’ referred to are the ‘cool kids’ or school bullies. However, I am talking about ‘big brother’ Christians who forgot that they’re not the Father and are bossing you around when they think He can’t hear.
If it really was your father and your brother really was bullying you and trying to get an edge on your dad’s acceptance, then you’d probably go talk to him to see how much of the nonsense was true. Do that with God.
“What is it in your life it takes Jesus to explain?”
You don’t have to worry about what people think of you. You don’t have to be held back by someone else’s unbelief. You don’t have to convince them, either. Does it help to know that God’s grace, forgiveness and acceptance come a lot sooner than anybody is ready for? It takes Jesus to explain that one.
And He will.
Just because Jesus is with you doesn’t mean He’s not with them, too. I’m talking to you, the one who fell. Spend your time answering to Jesus. Tap into the faith He’s given you so that you can experience the freedom that He died for. The freedom from yourself and your failures and the offer of another chance. Focus on that and believe that He’s with them, too. If He can change your selfish heart, He can change their hard heart. You have no right to be bitter toward people who can’t offer you grace. You’re doing the very thing to them that they’re doing to you.
We have to give one another the room to be wrong and to learn from it. Be for them, what they can’t currently be for you. Forgive the blindness. Show mercy to the deceived. Prepare your heart to be open to them when they turn from their own confusion and need your forgiveness. Do it before they ask. Isn’t that what God does for us?
When you hear that question,
what does it do for you?
what is your answer?
does it set you free knowing you don’t have to answer for yourself?
One of the biggest battles I faced while I was healing was in never being able to get away from the fact that I have left a very real trail of pain in my wake. Hurricane Serena. And I had no way of fixing it.
I felt toxic. I was detached from myself. The thinking part of me hated the rest of me. I wouldn’t let people befriend me.
Every once in a while I would feel a sense of ‘want’. I want to go back in time. I want to wake up. I want to be able to pay for it. I want to get away from myself. I want to be a good person.
I couldn’t do anything and I was tortured. I couldn’t make what I did go away. I would have done anything. But, there was nothing I could do. Every single bit of life was dimmed to a faint image and I lived inside a hell I can never adequately explain.
Clinically, I was experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. My memory is very splotchy for that time frame. I can remember what was happening in my spirit, but I cannot remember anything about my physical life. Movies, birthdays, Christmas, my pregnancy, divorce… are lost in the peripheral. I couldn’t sleep. The invading thoughts were too powerful.
I don’t want to get weird, but if I’m being honest, I have to say that something very demonic was having a field day with me. There are a lot of things I can’t adequately explain and this is another one of them. It makes you forget about everything in the human experience. There is a part of you that is connected to Eternity and it’s very seldom that we tap into that. My eternal identity was under attack and there is no fear like that. Even a person in the face of a painful death can still find rest in the fact that the pain is over when death comes. A person whose eternal life is being threatened with painful death can find no comfort. An eternal scream of despair and regret.
You ebb between thoughts of an end only to remember that there is no end. Then there is despair. In order to survive the despair, you grasp for hope in thoughts of an end and the cycle continues. A rat running for her life on a wheel in a cage.
The only reason I am telling you what it was like is to show you the contrast of what may be happening inside someone you know versus what you may think based on the arrogance and selfishness in which they previously acted. I sinned shamelessly. I lied without hesitation. I was heartless, sneaky, reckless and unapologetic. My venomous vanity sunk deep into the heart of people I had legitimately cared about. And that makes it worse. I am not a victim. So don’t give me any excuse just because you’re detached enough to be able to.
People tend to think that those who choose sin are enjoying it. I’m writing to tell you just how ‘fun’ it is.
I believe that if God didn’t care about me, I would’t have been taken to the ‘threshing floor’. I wouldn’t have experienced the unspeakable or dragged into the unmapped. I believe that God let me smell the breath of hell because that’s the only way I would have gotten what He wanted me to get.
This was actually an answer to prayer. I wanted to be pure. For a solid year, long before this happened, I would pray the same prayer every day. “God, please remove anything from my life that is not put there by you.” In another period of my Christian life, I prayed for God to use me. I didn’t care what it was, I just wanted my entire life to be used by Him. I remember feeling the sense of Him asking me if I knew what I was asking for. I wrote in my journal: ‘God wants to know if I have limits to what I’m used for. What If I would never agree to be used in the way He chooses to use me had I been asked?’ I thought about this for a while. It was sobering. But, I agreed completely. I said yes. I wrote a little about it here. I just re-read it and I’m crying.
The fire came. The Builder tore down the poorly laid bricks. Every part of me was sent through the fire and very little was left when I came out.
Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely. -1 Corinthians 3:11-15
I emerged a weak, insecure, lonely, speck of a person with a very poignant message. A message that is so much bigger than I am that it hurts to carry it. I, as a person, am not much to speak of. I keep to myself and struggle with feeling over-exposed. But my sense of purpose is something entirely different. God used my sin to do what, possibly, nothing else could have done. I hate what I did, but it has been turned into something that I would never wish away.
Now, I’m waiting. I want to speak. I want to write. I want to share my eye witness account of Jesus, my ‘testimony’, because that’s how ‘the accuser’ is defeated. He’s defeated by the Blood of the Lamb and our eye witness account of Jesus. So, when you withhold grace from someone, you’re actually witnessing for the other side. You’re with ‘the accuser.’
“Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony…”-Revelation 12:10-11 ESV
Relax, everything’s going to be all right; rest, everything’s coming together; open your hearts, love is on the way!-Jude 1:2
You are so afraid that your mistakes have ruined everything. You think you’ve somehow tripped up God’s plan for your life and are wondering how this can all be redeemed. How can you glorify God now?
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”-Revelation 21:5 ESV
“It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.-Revelation 21:6
There is Someone who goes before us and then follows after us. He’s not scrambling to fix things. Things are fixed. It’s done. The best explanation I have for why bad things still happen is it’s because He uses these things to show us who He is. We start to see who He is when He shows us how He’s designed everything to come together.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.-Romans 8:28 ESV
You have been called because He has a purpose. To serve His purpose, He works everything out to be for your good. You can’t mess this up.
“You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. -John 15:16
The main reason you can’t mess this up is because since you didn’t choose Him, then it’s not about what you do. He chose you (before you were born), so it’s about what He does.
…he who had set me apart before I was born…-Galatians 1:15 ESV
…his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don’t do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative.-Romans 9:10
He didn’t pick you out in your mother’s womb, He chose you before time began.
…who saved us and called us toa holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began…-2 Timothy 1:9 ESV
There are people who will remind you of your sin. They will try to convince you that your disobedience has rendered you useless and that you cannot be used by God if your life is scarred by sin. There are people who will try to convince you that the grace of God cannot wash you clean enough.
You need to read the scriptures for yourself, otherwise you’ll believe the condemnation and it will crush you. God not only chose you before time began, but He also knew you. He knew everything that you would do and you can’t let people convince you that you have shocked Him with your failure and rocked His purpose off course.
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son…-Romans 8:29 ESV
You are known and predestined to be exactly what He wants you to be. I don’t care what you think about the term ‘predestined’. I’m quoting scripture, not making junk up. If you’re ‘predestined’ then you are destined, fated, beforehand. If He already knew, then this is just part of your story. You are being formed into the image of Jesus. It’s active and ongoing. God doesn’t bail on you. People might, you might, but He never will.
And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.-Romans 8:30 ESV
You are approved. You are made righteous. You are adored.
That is the way God sees you. If any should attack you, it’s not from Him. There are people out there who do not understand grace. They don’t understand God’s purposes and why things happen the way they do. All they see are the rules that were broken and the person who broke them. You don’t have to worry about what people think. You’re not a victim because your salvation does not hinge on their approval. God knows how to deal with us individually. What is true for you, regarding undeserved grace, is also true for them. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling like a bitter victim of gracelessness. Forget about them. Either they come around or they don’t, but you have to dust that stuff off your feet and keep moving.
I have to write insisting—begging!—that you fight with everything you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish. What has happened is that some people have infiltrated our ranks (our Scriptures warned us this would happen), who beneath their pious skin are shameless scoundrels. Their design is to replace the sheer grace of our God with sheer license—which means doing away with Jesus Christ, our one and only Master. -Jude 1:3-4 (emphasis mine)
Jude is ‘begging’ us to fight for our faith. The faith He is referring to is the absolute power and authority over sin that Jesus won on the cross. Nothing can touch us. Not even us. People are in the mix who don’t get it and are trying to pick off anyone who doesn’t earn their way through adhering to the rules. They are called ’shameless scoundrels’ under ‘pious skin’. ‘Pious’ means ‘religious’. They try to shroud the simple truth and turn it into something unattainable except for perfect submission to the law. As though that has ever been possible. If it were, Jesus wouldn’t have had to come. They’re trying to replace Him with something you can never earn.
Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God’s kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won’t let anyone else in either. -Matthew 23:13
You were known before there was anything to know. You were predestined before He spoke creation into existence. You were called before you could answer. You, because of Jesus, are justified and glorified.
Your accuser won’t stand a chance in court because whatever happened works in your favor. No one can condemn you because Jesus already served your sentence. Every time someone stands against you in the presence of God, Jesus is standing there sticking up for you.
Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.-Romans 8:33-34 ESV
I want to know where your brother is. I want to know what you think happens when you leave the fallen behind. Do you think that you can sit in your churches and worship when there is an empty space where your friend used to sit? How can you sing songs and hear sermons about grace and forgiveness, the essence of the Gospel, and not connect that to the one who fell behind? How can you tell the people on the outside that something is true when you can’t make it true for one of your own?
Where is your brother?
There is a very real enemy who preys on the weak places of our lives when we least expect it. People don’t make damaging choices just to make damaging choices. They’re fighting wounds that never healed as children. They’re deceived into thinking that their healing is just around the corner. They’re shown a substitute for reality and they take it because it’s the first opportunity to escape the hurt that is breaking in on them.
They get on the wrong bus. They take the wrong pill. They drink from the wrong well. When they’re falling, they still think they can make it. He drives fast because he doesn’t think the crash will kill him. She gives herself away because she thinks it will deepen their love. People make poor choices because they don’t grasp the reality. They’re cashing in before the bidding is done.
The fantasy of completion is intoxicating. The intoxicated are the drunk. The confused. They need a sober friend to help them find their way home. They need someone to share the bitter tears of a little girl who gave herself away to the wrong boy. They need someone to tell them it’s going to be alright while they wait for the ambulance to come.
Why did you leave them?
There is a thief who is here to steal, to kill and to destroy. There are people who get caught in his lies, are being drug off to be destroyed. But, those who are marked for ‘LIFE’ will not die in the hands of the thief, but they will be tormented and lied to. He’s effectively convincing them that they are destroyed. We are not the judge of who is ‘marked for Life’. What are you doing leaving them? Where are your prisoners of war? Where is your brother?
“How should I know? Am I his babysitter?”-Genesis 4:9
Yes! Yes, you are his babysitter and his blood is your blood.
“What have you done! The voice of your brother’s blood is calling to me from the ground.” -God, Genesis 4:10
We all do stupid things even though we know better. We all have our limits and those limits are set by our own mistakes. ‘I’ve done that, so I have grace for that.’ ‘I haven’t don’t that, so I have no tolerance for that.’ We set our own limits and then we mistakenly attribute those limits to God. As though we’re so close to Him, we can freely pound gavels and reject testimony based on our surefire understanding of the situation.
We’re one body. We are connected by one Source of Blood. When one falls, we all fall. It’s designed to hold us together.
Can you sit in your churches and ignore the empty spaces? Heartache and sentiment are your offering, but your offering is rejected.
Leave your gift at the altar and go. First make peace with your brother, and then come back and present your gift. -Matthew 5:24 AMP
If your relationships are incomplete, unreconciled and left for dead, then your offering is not fit. If you leave your brother behind, left for dead, then you will be called to questioning. You’re trying to offer worship, but where is your brother? You’re trying to feed the hungry, but where is your brother? You’re trying to share the Gospel, but where is your brother?
Where is your brother? The voice of his blood is calling from the ground.
What have you done?
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.-1 Corinthians 13:1-3
This isn’t the emotionalism of a detached greeting card religion. This is a message to those who are too busy feeding the call of the social gospel to stop all their religious projects and self-indulgent plans to stand by the drunk kid wrapped around the light post waiting for the ambulance to get there. This is the ‘good Samaritan’ who dropped his agenda to carry the wounded to safety. This is the church leader who cries with the girl in her youth group who just got a pink positive on her pregnancy test.
Love doesn’t give up on someone. Love doesn’t keep score of sins. Love isn’t happy when the person suffers as a result of their bad choices. Love doesn’t assume the worst. Love puts up with anything. Love doesn’t look backward, but keeps pushing forward.
Whatever you’re doing that doesn’t include going back and walking at the slow pace of a fallen brother is nothing but noise and distraction. It’s not fit as long as his blood is calling out from the ground. You are trapped in relationship of love. You need to serve as much as he needs to be served. Wash his dirty feet. Help him carry his mess.
‘Carry each other’s burdens….’-Galatians 6:2
Judgement says: You did this. Grace says: It could have been me. I did this.
“Love will hold us together
Make us a shelter to weather the storm
And I’ll be my brother’s keeper
So the whole world will know we’re not alone”
It’s easy to feel like you can never be rescued when you’ve knowingly ’squandered your inheritance’ and hit bottom. Why should you be rescued, after all? It was your choice and you knew better.
The amazing thing about God is He can see worth in what has, so far, proven to be worthless.
We all make bad choices. We all ‘know better’.
Grace is rebellious. It’s disagreeable. It supersedes the rules and reaches places that most would never want to travel.
“Is there a person here who, finding one of your lambs fallen into a ravine, wouldn’t, even though it was a Sabbath, pull it out?” -Jesus, Matthew 12:11
There are people out there who have the foundational belief that grace is only made available to people who make the right choices. That doesn’t even make sense. The message is: You’ve messed up big time, but God will forgive you and bless you if you just do the right thing. If you make the wrong choice, I don’t know how God could ever redeem this.
People actually send these messages. What the heck kind of God are they serving if there is actually a possibility that you could go so far in the wrong direction that He wouldn’t know how to save you? There is such a strange desperate energy from people who are spouting off the eternal death sentence of hell for those they’re trying to shock into submission.
People have a limited capacity for patience, grace and suffering. They take their own limitations and personify God according to them. The degree of pride is repulsive. I wonder if they ever take their god off the leash and let him run around.
Grace isn’t a cupcake shaped pillow sitting on a daybed in the guest room of some out of touch fairy godmother wannabe.
Grace makes people mad. They’re so out of touch with the awful (as in awe-inspiring) magnitude of what the sacrifice of Jesus means, that it’s offensive. Grace says something and the do-it-yourself religious don’t like what it says.
I understand the fear of someone getting away with the pain and hurt that the selfishness of sin causes. There has to be a payment made.
Oh, but there was. Don’t you remember? The truth that saved you is the very same truth that saves them. Were you so unchanged by your experience with the thunderous roar of the Lamb of God that you doubt the salvation power for someone you deem ‘worse’ than you?
Grace always wins and it doesn’t need the approval of self-tainted man. It doesn’t matter if you’re the only one who trusts that what Jesus did was enough to cover the nakedness of what you’ve done. You don’t have to fear the judgment of men when they have nothing to do with your eternal lodging.
‘Don’t be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies. There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life–body and soul–in his hands.’-Matthew 10:28
Don’t you dare start pointing your finger at those who have their finger pointed at you. That’s you entering a paintball match of morality with no point and no winner. If they lose, you lose. If you lose, they lose. Like it or not, you’re in it together. Everybody gets to feel what it’s like to be completely wrong. This is me rolling out the welcome mat.
It’s one thing to be dealing with your own sin, don’t be cheap and try to alleviate your guilt by comparing it with the guilt of others.
For you who hear about the crazy power of grace, you say you agree but feel the overwhelming impulse to cap it off with the responsibility to live a moral life. You’re trying to sound so smart and religious. It’s the same thing as telling someone not to dive in three feet of water or not to strap your toddler’s car seat to the hood of the car.
‘What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How shall we who died in sin still live in it?’ -Romans 6:1-2 ESV
If someone even cares about grace, it’s because they can’t find a time machine to go back to the day they chose wrong. Do you think that grace makes them forget wanting to make different choices? Grace doesn’t erase a person’s memory, it erases their guilt. It gives them the chance to do it right the next time around.
But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in the competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life–a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.-Romans 5:20-21
‘All sin can do is threaten us with death.’ If you’re sending someone, who’s taken a wrong turn, scary messages of damnation and eternal destruction, then you’re speaking for sin. Threatening with death. You are the mouth piece of sin. You are the audible voice of sin. Tell me again, who are you speaking for?
There is a message that saves. It’s that message that makes the do-it-yourselfers squirm in their control tops and clip-on ties. Here is that message….
‘Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use to him.’-Romans 5:6-8
something told him that he’d be okay.
tingling lie. devil’s foreplay.
your heart is good. you won’t go too far.
‘my heart is pure. just slightly ajar.’
something came alive. it’s all firsthand.
new existence tingled and the flames got fanned.
keep your secret. they won’t understand.
‘i’m in control. i won’t let it brand.’
when something comes alive, you lose control.
nobody told him that his ‘alive’ would grow.
you’re in too deep. you can’t back out now.
‘i don’t think i want this. i just don’t know how…’
worlds fall apart while you’re feeding the beast.
too much has changed. integrity’s ceased.
they’ll hate you if you tell them. just stay here with me.
‘i didn’t think this through. this isn’t me.’
the pressure of sustaining this life on his own
he lost his foundation and burned down his home.
his children are wandering. his wife is alone.
he knows what he wants. clear as the day.
he wants to come clean. he’s ready to pay.
he looks for himself, but he’s gone astray.
don’t get noble on me. you’re worse than I.
‘that may be true. but i’ve got to try.’
devils are taunting. burying him in shame.
you’ve gone too far and you’re to blame.
you can’t come back from your selfish game.
he’s scratching the door. devil’s abscess.
he needs the cure to this hellish distress.
he breaks through his chains and faces his mess.
he finds his way home, but he’s lost his sheen.
he thought there’d be rejoicing, but confession is mean.
he’s under the scalpel without the morphine.
i told you they’d reject you and tear you apart.
they talk a good line, but grace is a lost art.
think of the wrong that gave this it’s start.
you don’t deserve this, remember ‘You’ve got a good heart.’
and then comes the Whisper. the Wind Over Water.
‘no one is good. pride is your falter.
no one is good. And this you can’t alter.
For if you were good, then why was I slaughtered?’
he was fighting from breaking, but this did him in.
a puddle of nothing and wreaking of sin.
lost and alone. bleeding through skin.
the good man died. let hell begin.
but the Whisper came calling. He wasn’t through.
‘now you know what’s always been true.
I’m the only good. there’s nothing you can do.
you’ve shown your worth. so-called virtue.
if you think you can reason, then hell has a fight
reason’s the cause of lie’s darkest night.
give up on good and own broken’s plight.
then Wind over Water will come make it right.
You let the distress bring you to God, not drive you from him. The result was all gain, no loss.-2 Corinthians 7:9
I want to talk about the intersection that people find themselves in after they’ve made a horrible mistake.
There is a point when you’ve made your selfish decisions and you get halted by the red light of reality. That red light can be anything from getting caught to not being able to stomach yourself anymore. Whatever brought you to that point, you now have options in front of you, voices surrounding you and a rare moment of clarity when you’re looking at your behavior.
The options are to continue (denial), back track (panic), turn left (run for it) or turn right (hit it head on).
The voices can either be helpful or debilitating. You either have friends who show you grace and love or you have ‘big brothers’ (as in the prodigal son story) who want you to suffer.
The moment of clarity is when you can see that you have to change something, you see your options and you have to take inventory of who you really are.
When the Bible says that the ‘God begotten do not make a practice of sin’ it means that, though you may head off course, you can’t continue. He’ll see to it that you get caught or that your lust (for something other than God) fades into something that sickens you. It’s quick for some and takes years for others. But if they belong to Him, then eventually the sparkle of fantasy will fade and they’ll come home. You can never look at a living breathing human being and assume they’re all done with their travels. Nobody is dead until God says they’re dead and He doesn’t confer with us on that.
So, this intersection…this flashing yellow light of extreme caution…is where the real stuff happens. The stuff you’ve stolen, the things you’ve lied to protect, the places you’ve gone to satisfy the want are ripped of their depth and you can see them for what they are. Hollow, empty, and flawed. It leaves you with shattered dreams and lost identity.
Godly sorrow. This is the kind of lament that starts with all encompassing grace. When you are fully aware of what you have done and what that behavior deserves and the only thing you get from God is His love, compassion and mercy…His grace…that ushers in Godly sorrow. It’s the place where the defenses can relent. It’s the melt in the shoulders. The safe place to run.
The kind of sorrow that has us running to the feet of Jesus and letting His blood pour over us as we cry from the depths of us.
Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. We never regret that kind of pain. -2 Corinthians 7:10
In grace we find out who we are and who He is. We don’t walk out of that intersection the same.
If you want to know how to respond to someone who sins and you want to see Godly sorrow from them, then love them.
Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. I’ve called your name. You’re mine. -God, Isaiah 43:1
There are people who are dying inside because of the mistakes they’ve made. They know what they’ve done and when they can’t find a way to take back the pain they caused. They are being crushed by an onslaught of terror. The kind of terror that drowns out their eternal hope.
It’s our responsibility to remind them of grace. They’re forgetting. They’re losing it.
They’re hearing voices that tell them that they can’t come back from this. They’re being told that they are forever stained.
Find them. Search them out and ignore their dirt. Separate the person from the sin. Treat the person one way and treat the sin another.
The pit of hell is rising against them. The forever blackness and eternal nothing is closing in on them.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down. -Isaiah 43:2
The church, generally speaking, is terrible at grace. They kick their battle wounded out and they end up scattered in a spiritual desert. Homeless, hungry, thirsty and naked. People think they’re doing the right thing when they separate themselves from the sinner.
The one who failed doesn’t just disappear. Their heart is still beating. When you have nothing to do with the person who made a mistake, you’re doing it in the name of God. This sends them into isolation with demonic forces being the only thing interested in their spirit. Their spirit which is very much alive and can feel everything.
God says that He is with them. So, the question you must ask yourself is: Are you with God?
I’d sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.-God, Isaiah 43:4
God is busy with the ransoming and the rescuing. He’s already taken care of the punishment. He’s already done away with their sin. It’s His baby out there. His lamb got lost and He’ll sell off everything He owns to get them back. He’ll leave you behind to go after them. Where are you?
‘Send them back. Return my sons from distant lands, my daughters from faraway places. I want them back, every last one who bears my name, every man, woman, and child whom I created for my glory, yes, personally formed and made each one.’ -God, Isaiah 43:6-7
This is your calling. This is your message. Grace. Mercy. Restoration. Go and get them. Give them a safe place to sleep. Feed them. Give them something to drink. Clothe them. Nurse them back to health.
But what about their sin? What about all the people who are pained just to be reminded of them?
“Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history.”-God, Isaiah 43:18
In God, everything is brand new. Can you treat your old friend according to the new? I know it’s hard to forget the indecency and selfishness. You’re human. But can you see what you’re doing? You’re separating yourself from the very thing you’re trying to uphold. You’re counteracting God’s grace with God’s old law.
But I, yes I, am the one who takes care of your sins—that’s what I do. I don’t keep a list of your sins.-God, Isaiah 43:25
When you base your actions, opinions and words on their sin, you’re not basing them on what Jesus accomplished. You’re letting sin tell you what to do. You’re justified by their sin.
‘I will remember their sin no more.‘ -God, Jeremiah 31:34 ESV
Can you even call it justified when God has no idea what sin you’re talking about?
Instead of building a fortress from bricks of gracelessness and the mortar of self-preservation, designs that keep God out, here’s what you should do:
Go after those who take the wrong way. Be tender with sinners, but not soft on sin.-Jude 1:22
It’s no secret that God’s fan club is terrible at representing Him. The more extreme they are in their fanship, the more vocal and aggressive they tend to be. Some feel like they know Him so well that they can start calling shots for Him without checking in first.
The scripturally illiterate seem to be the most visible and vocal. It’s the dramatics and flair of extremism that get their blood running. They establish themselves as experts while having no clue that their confrontational disposition and combative strategies are opposing the very scriptures they’re mis-quoting.
They set themselves up as experts on religious issues, but haven’t the remotest idea of what they’re holding forth with such imposing eloquence.-1 Timothy 1:7
They want to shut you out of the free world of God’s grace so that you will always depend on them for approval and direction, making them feel important. -Galatians 4:17
People are strange. Religious people are the strangest. They have a remarkable amount of passion and determination when chasing down their spiritual highs. They’re able to manifest all kinds of awkward adrenaline fueled performances.
If you do something wrong, would you want to be punished by people or God? With a pack of sensationalists greedy for their next supernatural feast, you’d do anything to avoid being their next meal.
David prayed, “I have sinned badly in what I have just done, substituting statistics for trust; forgive my sin—I’ve been really stupid.”
God answered …’You have your choice of three punishments; choose one and I’ll do the rest…Do you want three years of famine, three months of running from your enemies while they chase you down, or three days of the sword of God—an epidemic unleashed on the country by an angel of God? Think it over and make up your mind…”
David [said], “They’re all terrible! But I’d rather be punished by God whose mercy is great, than fall into human hands.”-1 Chronicles 21:8-13
The problem is as old as the hills. It will be around long after we’re all gone. If you don’t want to be a part of the problem then step back for a while and take inventory of how your thought process measures up against what Jesus accomplished. Something supernatural and real called you into this life. Make sure that nothing superficial and contrived is driving you forward.
No matter what situation you’re in, grace always wins. Nobody can take that away. Failure is an inevitable part of life so you may as well make stumbling a part of your dance.
