free to love

Sin is self-realization. When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God for the first time, their response was to cover themselves. They were aware of themselves for the first time and felt over exposed.

God called to the Man: “Where are you?”

He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”

God said, “Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?” -Genesis 3:9-11

Self-awareness is evidence of sin. You can be self-aware by following a set of rules for moral living and you can be self-aware by disregarding morality to get what you want. They both set the person up for personal gain.

As a human being, it’s impossible to not be aware of yourself. Even if you’re a people pleaser you do it to get acceptance and approval from others. We inherited our awareness from Adam and with that knowledge comes the inclination to behave selfishly.

The point is, we are all incapable of avoiding sin. Especially when you consider that the act of trying to avoid sin is sin.

What one man did changed everything, what another man did changed it back. What Jesus did cancelled what Adam did.

Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. -Romans 5:18

Being ’set free from sin’ means exactly that. It doesn’t mean that you won’t sin, it means that you are no longer under it’s command, tyranny or rule.

Sin is in command when you’re either trying to avoid it or when you’re giving in to it. It demands your attention either way. If you understand that sin has been taken care of, then you don’t need to be afraid of it anymore.

You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. -Romans 11:12

Sin tyrannizes us with fear. It’s a fear that something besides God has the power to decide your fate. God does not contradict Himself. If the law requires penance, then the penance must be paid. He doesn’t let people off the hook without suffering a loss Himself. He suffered the end-all of losses and now the law is complete. The law is no longer out for blood. It’s satisfied.

We wouldn’t have sin without having the law. You wouldn’t know you were doing something wrong if you didn’t know what ‘right’ was. Sin depends on the law for power. If the law no longer has loose ends and ‘what if’s’, then the sin is powerless, too. Since neither have the ability to be ‘gods’, then you choose either for what you can get out of it. You choose ’self.’

The law and sin are no longer the rulers. They are the old regime. They’re the ‘old way.’

Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God. -Romans 6:14

Since you no longer have to be afraid of messing up, then you can focus all of your time on getting in on what God is doing. You are free to forget about getting it right. If you use your new found freedom to serve your own agenda then you’re choosing yourself again. When you choose selfishness, you lose your freedom.

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows.-Galatians 5:13

we

You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. -1 Corinthians 12:27

It’s the little things that get me. The subtle hints of God peeking through the eyes of humanity. The faint whisper of God using someone else’s face to show you His smile.

At first glance, God is entirely spiritual and humans are both spiritual and physical. But God does have a physical body. Us.

I read a story about someone who was sitting in an airport waiting out her layover when a flight attendant wheeled a shaggy old man into the waiting area. The sight of him got the attention of several people. He was disheveled, unshaven and sat with his ratty hair shielding his face as he stared at his shoes.

The woman got the tug in her heart and tried to dismiss it, but couldn’t. She knew that God wanted her to brush his hair.

Under the curious eyes of everyone around, she walked over to him and asked if she could brush his hair. He looked up at her and nodded. As she was brushing, she could hear that he was crying and leaned down to ask him if he was okay. He nodded and explained that he and his wife had been sick. They were in separate facilities and he was on his way to see her for the first time in two months. He knew he looked terrible because he hadn’t been able to take care of himself like he usually did. He was sitting there feeling embarrassed by his appearance and heartbroken that he couldn’t look better for his bride. He was sitting in the waiting room wishing that he could just brush his hair.

When God says He wants you to give your life to him, it doesn’t stop at your focus and it doesn’t aim for your happiness. ‘You’ have to be taken out of the equation entirely. How else is He going to smile at someone, look in someone’s eyes, or brush His child’s hair?

I think sometimes the Body of Christ can be so focused on practicing their version of religion that they forget that the most important thing the physical body of Christ did was after he lived a life of loving the unloveable, hanging out with sinners and earning a shady reputation within the religious community, he gave his body up for the sake of everyone else. We should be, as the Body of Christ now, what the body of Christ was when only one man ran it.

perspective

As Christians, we have developed this sense of entitlement. We think that if God had His way, we would have an easier time of things.

God’s goal is to get you to a place where you know Him. He wants to be seen. What if the only way for you to know Him is in your discomfort? It’s possible that we are denying the process by avoiding the pain.

Instead, we should enter it and be cleansed from any sense of entitlement. We tell Him that He can do anything He wants with us, but do you realize that He can do anything He wants with us? When it hurts do you talk back? Do you rebuke it?

What life are you trying to hold on to here? Your ‘here and now’ life or your spiritual life?

Don’t be so shortsighted that you are one of those who thinks they’ve got it all figured out, but are so clueless to the real agenda of God. Those people reject His movement within them as they try to maintain control of all the pretty aspects of their ‘here and now’ existence.

Learn to think like Jesus.

Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want. 1 Peter 4:2

We can want pure and noble things for our lives, but what if your physical comfort is a detriment to your spiritual growth? What would you prefer?

I’ve prayed for broken things to get fixed, but as I pray I am very aware that maybe it’s broken because it needs to be broken. Who says I should never be the owner of something broken?

We think of those people who experience a miracle in their lives and think that if we had that level of faith, we’d have a miracle, too. The miracle is whatever illuminates God for us. Maybe those people don’t feel entitled and so God showed His presence by giving them something tangible. It’s personal, you let go and you find your needs met. You hold on and you sacrifice your spiritual life.

If we think that God only wants peace for us, then we will be tyrants of war trying to maintain peace. What if God wants you to be free of looking after yourself?

He tells us to love as if our lives depended on it. Well, what if our lives actually depended on it? Are we losing our lives because we’re trying to protect it?

It depends on what you call your ‘life’.

God knows that life is your spirit. When He gives life, it’s not through the birth pains of your mother. It’s through the birth pains of His Son. What ‘life’ is your real life? We get them tangled up, we use our physical eyes and our physical awareness to breath life into an existence we’re repeatedly told to die to.

We see life, in our finite minds, as our finite lives. We’re never supposed to give the time of day to our mortal existence because it’s destined for death. We all die, we all leave things behind. Money, flowers, lovers, children…. If you agree with that, then it’s easy to see that what we take with us beyond death is the only thing we’re supposed to breath life into.

When a body dies, we have a responsibility to take care of that body and give it a proper burial. This takes time and there is a procedure to be followed. Our physical lives are to be addressed. We have responsibilities to give our physical lives the same attention that we do a body to be prepared for burial. You assume responsibility, but you don’t rely on it for life giving information. It just speaks a dead language and smells of death. Dress it properly, but know that the clothing will rot under the watchful eye of no one.

If you set up your life to maintain control, then you lose your spiritual life.

If the Bible is true, then there are many things we don’t understand. There is a perspective that we don’t quite have. So when the Bible says to do something as if your life depended on it, it’s probably best to just do it. And we now know, that the ‘life’ it’s talking about is not the one that will be buried one day.

Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. – 1 Peter 4:8

i’m sorry

i don’t always make the best choices.

trying to do the right thing

listening to the noble voices

unity-i want to bring

either stander-by or active role

i wish i could fix it all

but wince and watch it lose its control

your giant, to me, looked small

if i could be a fly on your wall

then i would know what you need

chance to see your reflection at all

ripped reverse from root to seed

the place where interpretaion lies

vantage point i need to score

is to see things from inside your eyes

and try not to hurt you more

love wins

Forgiveness is such a mysterious thing. I don’t know how to tell you the way to do it and make it stick. I can tell you what it does, but I can’t tell you how to make it real. 

We are weak. We fall in our own traps and we hold on to pain like it has the power to heal. If we let go of the pain, how do we know it won’t come back and tear us apart? If we forgive, are we saying that everything is okay? Are we saying that we don’t hurt anymore? 

When I ask Jesus for forgiveness, He does it immediately. Humanity is different. Flesh scars and it’s so much harder for us to see the burn marks and not hold the arsonist responsible.

The truth is, whether you forgive or not, the fuel was still spilled and the match was still lit. Your body is still scarred and the evidence is still there. The only thing that can change is the one who is scarred and the one who has the smell of sulfur on his fingers. 

You are justified in holding the sinner responsible for their actions. You are understood when you are angry. But what if you defy human nature and put the scriptures to the test? What if you take the hit? What if you offer more than what was stolen?

The Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins, but how does that play out in real life? Love has the power to transform. Love tells the sinner that his spirit is unblemished. With that security, he is able to get the matters of his flesh in order simply because he has hope. Love gives birth to hope and hope enables change. Change is the goal, after all. 

The Bible says that God is Love. In the previous paragraph, replace the word ‘love’ with the word ‘God’ and try to understand the power of love with that direct parallel. 

God covers a multitude of sins. God has the power to transform. God tells the sinner that his spirit is unblemished. God breathes hope.

Hope makes you push forward.

Pushing forward helps you break through. 

The man has a breakthrough and, with the lessons he learned in his pocket, he gets back to life under the freedom of grace that love provided. The freedom of a fresh start that Jesus made possible.

God is love. That’s why love wins.

Go forgive someone. Go love someone.