perfect

Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? -Galatians 2:17

I was asked to be part of a conversation the other day. Two people were going back and forth about the desire to strive for perfection in their Christian lives. I listened as they debated terminology and offered analogies. As I stood there, it became evident that they both wanted to be the best Christian they could be. They just differed on the avenue and approach to achieving perfection.

The goal is noble and the heart bent toward godliness is admirable. However, in all of their considerations, neither of them mentioned Jesus once.

Do we do things for Jesus, or do we allow Him to do them in us?

A person who is keenly aware of their achievement is, by default, fully aware of themselves. It is a badge of time passed and strength built. It is a Babel Tower, not a Sacrificial Lamb.

A person who is keenly aware of their sin is also aware of their need for Jesus. Isaiah’s experience teaches us that when you are aware of your sin, you are in the presence of God.

I do not appear perfect because I refuse to lie about my shortcomings. I am not perfectly moral and do not pretend to be. Choosing to live honestly before God and others avails the opportunity for the shortcomings to be offered up in their entirety in order to be made fully ineffective. The power of the sin is in the lie of the secret.

And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? -Galatians 2:17-18

If sin gives awareness of the need for Jesus, then sin does not hold the control. God shows sovereignty over sin by turning it into a path to the Savior. Your sin bounces off the presence of God and illuminates your need for Jesus. Sin does not wear Jesus as a necklace.

If you are trying to please God through your own efforts, you are repudiating the sacrifice. If it’s ‘perfection’ you’re after, then release the grip you have on yourself. Freedom is found in the letting go. Jesus is the only way to be made ‘perfect’ and any effort otherwise is a renouncement of your relationship with Him. Taking on the role of savior or achiever in your life is a blatant act of rebellion against the generosity of the gift.

Wanting to be like Jesus is not the problem. The misunderstanding is found in the interpretation of what Jesus stood for. He came to be the sacrifice for Love. If you must strive, strive for Truth. If you want to throw in your efforts for perfection, make the effort to be perfect in Love. Love God with all of your existence and love others the way Jesus loves you. That is a true offering and it’s one that takes no consideration of self.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily. -Galatians 2:21

riddles and light

A reader recently brought up some concerns and my response was getting so long, I decided to post it as a new blog. Here you go:

Reader: “I can sin & get by with it, and that sin is inevitable for the Christian.”

Serena: You can sin and be forgiven of it. Period. Don’t assume that God is not big enough or wise enough to shape the intentions of His children. If they’re taking advantage of a system, He knows what to do.

Those who have an issue with the audacity of grace are those who are trying to get by on their own righteousness. They behave as though God owes them something for not needing His sacrifice.

Sin absolutely is inevitable, even for a Christian. If a person had the ability to not sin, then Jesus would not have had to come. I’ll go even further and say that diligent obedience to the rules is a cleverly disguised rebellion against God. It’s the person taking the control and initiative in their own salvation. If you can do that, you are your own savior.

When you break the rules, you rebel against God. When you follow the rules, you rebel against God. There is no win to be found in your actions. The only way to be free from the tyranny of sin brought on by the rules (regard and disregard) is to trust Jesus to be your ransom.

As for God’s plan for His creation…it has been His plan since before he formed the Earth and made the first human to rescue them from their sins.

Here’s the scripture:

‘God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.’ - Romans 11:32

Reader: Sure, we can still make the wrong choices, but it is still our choice. It seems to me that the conclusion Serena has come to, because of her fall, is that we are all destined to fall,…

Serena: We are destined to fall because He was destined to rescue us.

‘And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you.‘ -1 Peter 1:19

Reader: ‘I believe part of Christ’s redeeming work was to give us power over sin and we just have a choice to make, day by day, temptation by temptation.’

Serena: Jesus has the power over sin, not us. You may be thinking of Romans 6:14 when you say that, (For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.) but you’re misunderstanding the meaning. It does not mean that you have the ability to not sin, it means that sin does not have the ability to define you. If you try to avoid it, then you still believe it has the power. If you give into it, then you still believe it has the power. You’re set free from sin. Now you don’t have to be afraid anymore. (Even when you sin!)

Reader: ‘Surely you are aware of people who are professing Christians who repeatedly hurt their families by their sinful choices and then say, “God still loves me. I just screwed up (again)”.’

Serena: Are you not satisfied with the way God is handling His business? Do you think you can do a better job? Are those people dead, and so we can decide their fate? Even if they were dead, it would be too late to have a discussion about it. Dead or alive, the sins of others are no concern of ours. We have no idea what is going on inside the hearts of others, we don’t even fully understand what goes on inside of our own hearts.

‘So don’t get ahead of the Master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we never even dreamed of—inner motives and purposes and prayers.’ -1 Corinthians 4:5

Why focus on the shortcomings of countless people? Is this a competition?

‘I would rather not see you inflating or deflating reputations based on mere hearsay. For who do you know that really knows you, knows your heart? And even if they did, is there anything they would discover in you that you could take credit for? Isn’t everything you have and everything you are sheer gifts from God? So what’s the point of all this comparing and competing? You already have all you need.’ -1 Corinthians 4:7-8

Is there a point when we have failed so miserably and so often that we can no longer say that God loves us?

The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture. -Romans 8:38

Not even the worst sins listed in scripture.

Reader: ‘…of course there is grace for the sinner who repents and really has a change of heart about their sin and turns away from their sin. But God still calls us to holiness, and that should be our goal.’

Serena: The conditions that you have put on grace are your own, not Biblical. There are no conditions on grace. There is no contract. If there were, we would never qualify.

God calls us holy, He calls us to a holy life. It’s a gift to be lived, not a requirement to be earned. God does not raise us up to be independent of Him. Satan does that.

Our goal is not holiness. Our goal is Jesus who makes us holy.

Reader: ‘ “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins” Hebrews 10:26 ‘

Serena: You’re misunderstanding the scripture. You have to read it in context. The entire first part of Hebrews 10 is talking about the ‘old way/life’ which is following the Law to keep us in right relationship with God. The issue was that they couldn’t keep themselves pure no matter how many sacrifices they made. It was a dead end of failure and guilt. The ‘new way/life’ is through Jesus who became the sacrifice of all sacrifices. His death satisfied the Law. If you hear and believe that Jesus is the way to salvation, but then turn around an go back to the ‘old way/life’ (following the Law to achieve salvation) then Jesus is no longer your sacrifice. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t serve two masters. Either He is enough or not. The ’sin’ it refers to is the sin of choosing yourself and your ability rather than choosing Jesus and His sacrifice. If you live by the Law, then you answer for yourself. That’s the craziest decision ever because the entire Old Testament is full of people much more religious than us who couldn’t do it.

I hope that shed a little light…

grace is for sinners

Grace is a pivotal word in Christianity. You hear it in sermons and songs. It’s written on bumper stickers and imbedded in church slogans. Yet, it’s the last thing that Christians are known for. If the world had to sum up Christians in one word, that word would be ‘judgmental’.

Wolves wearing sheep costumes have infiltrated our steeple-topped roofs. Who fell asleep? Why wasn’t someone keeping watch? More importantly, is there anyone who knows the truth so that the lie can be sifted?

Our congregations limit their biblical knowledge to what is coming from the pulpit on Sundays and propaganda that is put out there by celebrity Christians. The rebellious and revolutionary truth of the Gospel has been drowned out with opinions and superstitions. Most of my generation agree that not even Jesus would be the type of ‘Christian’ the church thinks he should be.

The general ‘believing’ population doesn’t know what the Bible actually says. It’s no wonder the culture is riddled with divisions and dissociations. Quarrels and gossip circulate like tornados in suburban cul-de-sacs. Most just want to walk away from the whole thing. The church is no longer offering spiritual meat and potatoes and that is what we’re looking for. Preachers seem to be more like motivational speakers or emotion manipulators. We’re not walking away because we’re not buying the Truth. We’re walking away because we’re not finding the Truth.

You can sit in your meeting places and discuss the problem until your pie charts turn into a membership recruitment carnival cake walk, but we’re not looking to be entertained. The old bells and whistles don’t work anymore. We live in an era when we can access the world by putting our fingertips to our iPhones. We are looking for something to satisfy the deep. We are looking for someone who knows what they’re talking about.

We know it’s not rule keeping that eases the hunger, we’ve been there and it’s not the key. Intents and purposes aside, the written and unwritten rules are more for our flesh than for our spirits. When all of our time is spent trying to adhere, we don’t take the time to get to know who God actually is. Our spirit remains hungry.

If someone is sacrificing Led Zeppelin in his iPod, dancing lessons with her best friends or the smooth taste of an expensive bottle of wine, it’s no wonder they’re so abusive to those who don’t. It would make anybody crabby to watch others ‘get away’ with behaviors you deem sinful. Therefore, you tisk and condemn. The practice of superstitious religion with the belief that you can lose your salvation by not getting the rules right is probably the thing that makes God’s enemy, Satan, most proud.

The free for all doesn’t work either. Years are going by and all of our living right experiments are coming up short on answers. However, ask anyone in the heat of their own personal ‘Get Mine Marathon’ and you won’t find the depth of satisfaction and meaning there, either. Every day brings more things to obtain. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible for a seeker-of-everything to be satisfied with ‘so far.’

Experience gives birth to knowledge and wisdom. A person knows nothing about a situation they’ve never been in. Obviously there is any number of things you would rather not experience, but still like to collect the experience’s lesson.

The Church is like a prominent family who fights to keep their good name. When an ugly occasion takes place, it is quickly whisked away and never talked about. Under rug swept. What if the tainted people under the rug knew something that the others didn’t? What if they knew the piece of the puzzle that made our faith make more sense? What an upheaval it would be if the outcasts of the religious elite were the one’s with the clarity of grace needed to preach the Gospel with the ‘X’ factor that is missing from professional Christianity. Wasn’t Jesus an outcast of the religious elite? Wasn’t he an upheaval? What if the religious ‘X’ factor wasn’t some external sparkle that everyone can coo over, but an internal searing of the soul by grace so aggressive and forgiveness so exhaustive that the recipient walks away from the spiritual brawl with a limp? What if the limp is the ‘X’ factor?

Who do you want preaching the message of Grace? The career Christian who stays in every Friday night playing Old Testament Bingo with his fourteen-year-old poorly socialized son? Or would you want to hear about grace from the ex-rock star who’s distracting tattoos testify to his length of journey? How about the alcoholic who is on his fifth try at being sober? Do you think the adulterous home-wrecker could have learned something in the fiery aftermath that could have taught her a thing or two about grace? Jesus cradles the broken sinners to his chest and his blood washes away their filth as they cry in his shirt.

Jesus’ life purpose was to save us from our sins. He was a friend and a teacher to those in the physical sense, but he is a savior for all in a spiritual sense. You can thank him for your new car and sweet puppy, you can submit your immoral co-workers to his attention, you can even ask him to bless your food. When was the last time you laid curled up in a fetal position knowing that he had every right to make you pay up for your disgusting behavior and he didn’t? He came and laid down next to you and stayed there until you were ready to get up. Then, while the memories of what you did shook your brain and lost your hope in the vertigo of facts, he held your hair when your stomach emptied itself.

Who knows that Jesus? Us sinners. We know him like that.

Isn’t it a twist to know that a life can become a direct parallel to scripture more as a sinner being nursed back to health in the secret places than as a moral victor in a vinyl suit smelling of microphone breath slapping ‘fives’ in the church corridors?

The sinner has lost her good name. The reputation she had in the world has dissolved as fast as baker’s sugar in the hot water of public disdain. Yet, as she loses her life as a successful righteous life owner, she finds her life as the beloved lamb who is being carried on the Shepherd’s shoulders all the way home.

The busy believer has a reputation in the world to uphold and an example to set. She is impenetrable by the real life circumstances because Christians, after all, are not supposed to be affected by the pains and sufferings of the world. People assume that something is wrong with their relationship with Jesus if they are.

Where is a crying and tortured people going to turn? Will it be the one who cannot identify with pain due to the continual denial or the one who carries the knowledge of tremendous spiritual suffering in his eyes? When you just want to cry into the night, ‘It hurts!’ who is going to understand that kind of groan?

We are Christians. We are people who carry the lamp and man the lighthouses. We’re not to be examples of lives that don’t need Jesus because we’ve gotten good at keeping the rules. We are to be examples that no matter how bad it gets, there is hope and it’s only because of what Jesus did that we can be okay.

‘You’re going to make it,’ they say. How do they know? Because they bear the scars that prove they were there.

Grace is the pivotal gift in the lives of human beings. We are people who have real lives and real aspirations. As a result of our human condition, we are also bruised and scarred by inevitable failure. Grace is not the free gift reserved for those who don’t need it. ‘Grace Is For Sinners.’

Great Scheme of God

I used to envy the religious elite. The bred preachers and the children who became adults under the wings of cookie baking Sunday School teachers and shiny toed pastors. They had the beauty of the church life crowning their heads from the moment of conception. I wanted their childhood, their life. They’re the one’s who held the corners of religion up on their generational shoulders.

I grew up on the streets. An outsider to the church culture. A vagrant surviving on the defiant spit of the stubborn will to live. When I became a Christian at nineteen, I was still an outsider in a world of insiders. They were all being groomed at Christian Universities and I was a single mom running from myself and raising a baby on grace. When my ’self’ caught up to me and my moral sheen got scratched beyond recognition in the hellish tumble of sin, I was booted out of the meeting places.

When I was out on my own with grit in my teeth and dried blood in my hair, I watched them all walk out on the Truth. They formed picket lines and petitioned for my death. Whispers of gossip and rocks of condemnation were hurled at my head and I searched for a place to find a shield of safety.

When they walked out on the Truth, they left the door wide open and I crawled back in to find sanctuary, salvation and healing.

People, like me, all over the world are meeting together in the house of Truth and Grace. Those of us who thought we were alone, are worshiping together under the very light we were told was nowhere near us.

A sight to take your breath away! Grand processions of people telling all the good things of God! -Romans 10:15

We’re sobbing and singing, “I praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead!’

But not everybody is ready for this, ready to see and hear and act. -Romans 10:16

They murmur among themselves. The judgmental outsiders to the Truth. The rejecters of Grace.

We’re dancing in our salvation, but does anyone care?

“Is anyone listening and believing a word of it?” -Romans 10:16

The grace that we cling to, the truth that sets us free has been preached across every sea. Preached by the very mouths who want to keep it from us.

So the big question is, Why…? -Romans 10:18

Moses had it right when he predicted, ”When you see God reach out to those you consider your inferiors—outsiders!—you’ll become insanely jealous. When you see God reach out to people you think are religiously stupid, you’ll throw temper tantrums.” -Romans 10:19

God knows what is happening and He sees His oldest children giving His plan of redemption the cold shoulder. Isaiah knew it (Isaiah 65:2), Elijah agonized over it (1 Kings 19:10).

God’s children, the one’s He’s had in His pews since birth are out seeking their own interests. They’re trying to maintain their standing in Heaven on their own.

This is the Christian sub-culture today. This is what the world sees and wants no part of. This current dilemma has been played over and over like a broken record of scriptures throughout history. Moses, Elijah and Isaiah all predicted it and it is happening. The religious ‘insiders’ the ‘Christian elite’ continue to become thick skinned toward God.

Fed up with their quarrelsome, self-centered ways, God blurred their eyes and dulled their ears. Shut them in on themselves in a hall of mirrors, and they’re there to this day. -Romans 11:8; (Isaiah 29:10)

David was upset about the same thing: I hope they get sick eating self-serving meals, break a leg walking their self-serving ways. I hope they go blind staring in their mirrors, get ulcers from playing at god. -Romans 11:9; (Psalm 69:22)

It is all part of the Great Scheme of God. The ‘pruning’ and ‘grafting’ of branches. This is God’s plan. The walking out, the blinded eyes. What good could possibly come from Christians tyrannizing their fallen?

“I want to lay all this out on the table as clearly as I can, friends. This is complicated. It would be easy to misinterpret what’s going on and arrogantly assume that you’re royalty and they’re just rabble, out on their ears for good. But that’s not it at all. This hardness on the part of insider…toward God is temporary. Its effect is to open things up to all the outsiders so that we end up with a full house.” -Romans 11:25

In our finite minds, we can only see that we are embracing God’s message of the Gospel of Grace and the others, those who are hurting and doubting us, are God’s enemies. Enemies to Grace.

But look at it from the long-range perspective of God’s overall purpose, they remain God’s oldest friends. God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded. -Romans 11:28

They’ll be back! They walked out because that’s what humans do, but God will bring them back. What’s more, when they walked out on the Truth and rejected Grace to the fallen, they left the door wide open! Because the door is wide open for you, for me, it’s open for them, too. He is using their hard hearts to let you in!

In one way or another, God makes sure that we all experience what it means to be outside so that he can personally open the door and welcome us back in. -Romans 11:32

We know that we all have sinned and are all ‘falling short’ (Rom3:23), we also know that God is sovereign, but to put the two together is not something I’ve heard taught. Over seven different translations of Romans 11:32 read that ‘God consigned, penned up, bound, shut up, imprisoned, concluded, committed all to sin’ and the reason is the same in every translation. It’s so that He can have mercy on us. He levels us, he makes us all equals. All sinners in need of His mercy and grace. An entire human race in need of His Son. This is how He gets a full house! This was His plan all along.

Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It’s way over our heads. We’ll never figure it out. -Romans 11:33

Soon enough, we’ll all be back together and worshipping God and praising Jesus, the One who raised us all from the dead.

Everything comes from him; Everything happens through him; Everything ends up in him. Always glory! Always praise! Yes. Yes. Yes. -Romans 11:36

Read Romans (last half of) 10 and 11, (I used The Message when I wrote this) the entire first part of my story is a direct parallel to Romans 10, but I didn’t list the scriptures. There is Earth shattering truth to be found. God is sovereign (the decision maker, the one in control) and until we get that, we get nothing. Find hope in the Truth. Find the kind of hope that gives you patience and empathy to those who belittle God’s grace in you and condemn you. They’re part of the ‘Great Scheme of God’ and they’ll be worshipping beside you one day with the thankful heart of a sinner saved by grace.

the rescuer

The Master declares, “I’m A to Z. I’m The God Who Is, The God Who Was, and The God About to Arrive. I’m the Sovereign-Strong.” -Revelation 1:8

If God is sovereign, then there is no plan B. That would be antithetical. Sovereign is undisputed, therefore any rival to that authority or control is useless at best and blasphemy at worst. If you are able to make choices which alter His plan, then that makes you sovereign. That makes you an opponent of God.

There is a fundamental belief which is entirely other than the story told in scripture.

You know what you believe when you mess up. Your panic tells you that you believe you’ve just messed up God’s plan. His plan is eternal. His plan IS. You are and have always been His plan.

You know what you believe when someone sins against you. Your lack of forgiveness and when, in many cases, restoration show that the sin is sovereign, not God. Your fear of associating with or condoning the sin is evidence that the belief is that sin is sovereign.

If we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sinbehind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land! -Romans 6:2-3

Association, by definition, is to allow oneself to be connected with or seen to be supportive of. When considering your plan of action regarding a fellow Christian who sins, you must remember that it is the sin of which you do not approve. The ’sinner’ is an altogether different being. Jesus came to rescue him. When He ascended to Heaven, He commissioned us to lead them to (or back to) Him.

You must fight to disregard religious society to be seen with a known sinner. Your ammunition can be your faith that the sinner is still of value and still has access to the Cross. You would be associating with the story of redemption and lining yourself up with Christ as he calls the wounded to come rest at His feet. Non-believers who claim to be believers will chastise you and possibly disown you, too. You have to choose to stand up for the finished work of the cross or the polished veneer of man.

The definition of condone becomes a contradiction to your general meaning of the word when you compare it to it’s synonyms. Other words for condone are pardon, excuse, forgive and let go. When you say, ‘I cannot condone your sin.’ You are saying that you cannot forgive or let go. Is that what you’re saying? If the Gospel was a board game, you would be sent back to square one.

I think a lot of us need to be sent back to square one. However, a person doesn’t realize they have it all wrong until it no longer works for them. The regard or disregard for ‘right and wrong’ are not what make a person sin. Sin is far deeper than superficial reasoning. Sin has a root and that root is a deep love or need for something other than God. In biblical terms, the root of sin is idolatry and the idol is you.

Condone in the sense that, I believe, most mean when they use the phrase would be closer to another synonym: allow.  ’I will not allow that.’ If you are dealing with a person who has made a lifestyle of sin, then that is an appropriate response. If you are dealing with a Christian who sinned, you are not dealing with a lifestyle, you are dealing with a mistake. If a child lit a match and set his house on fire, you can stand in the front yard and tell him that he is not allowed to play with matches and that you do not allow him to set fire to your home. However, the mistake has already been made and there is no going back. You can berate him and condemn him, but it will not undo his mistake and it will not provide his salvation.

‘I do not condone’ is a redundancy. It is an unneeded statement. The only response from you is an act of faith. Do you believe in the finished work of Jesus? Then provide that life saving information and give CPR to that friend who is being suffocated by the weight of his sin. It’s belief that saves us. You have to believe it for yourself or you can never make anyone else believe. If you could hear what is happening inside the mind of a Christian who got tangled in Hell’s trap, you would hear a tsunami of accusations and death sentences. A torrential storm is attacking the nervous system of his faith.

How many fallen Christians walk away from church altogether? Do you know any? It’s not because they didn’t love Jesus. It’s because, when they fell, they were lied to by Satan and you never provided the anecdote of Truth. Belief changes everything. You never injected the sick with the story of Jesus. Your fear got in the way.

What are you afraid of? When you figure it out, face it or be a slave to it. It’s exasperating to know that ignorance on the part of the self-righteous is what is making people walk away from the church. Ignorance can be exchanged for a more incisive word like ‘immaturity’. The immature are the loudest group. Look everywhere else in society for an illustration. They haven’t learned to hold their tongue long enough to develop the 1 Corinthians 13 type of love in their character. The immature are egocentric. An egocentric person views everything from their own perspective and, therefore, is the antithesis of what Jesus stood for. Again you are God’s opponent.

We’re supposed to be like Jesus. Jesus is a rescuer.

all the wrong things made right

If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel. If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you. -Deuteronomy 22:22-24

She knew the law. She knew she was doing something wrong. Nobody violated her. Nobody forced her. Somehow, in the middle of it all, she let herself be carried away by love and the thoughts of love and the rebelliousness of it all. She was a good girl. Smiles and loyalty were what she gave to her friends. She was a girl’s girl, but got caught up in the flair of it all. The secrets of a love affair.

The morning sun poked through the curtain and her stretch arched her body closer to him. His snore made her smile and wince at the same time. He was not hers. She should not know what his snore sounds like. What his hands feel like. She pulled away from him and felt her shoulders draw in to her body as shame made it’s way across her usually sunny face.

“Dear Father,” she prayed, “please help me. I love him.”

She knew she was sinning and hated it. Every moment that they shared was robbed by the dark shadow of sin. Loving him wasn’t the plan in an affair that had no plans. She didn’t want to sin anymore, but could not make herself not love him. Every poem, song and little girl’s dream danced inside of their love, but it was encased in sin and she had to walk away.

And then her prayer was answered. In the worst way possible.

The door crashed open. There was so much yelling and rushing toward her. Her lover fell out of bed and was stuck under a boot on the floor.

She needed his eyes.

They grabbed her and pulled her to her feet. He screamed at them, but they were beyond hearing. Her heart pounded her sentence. She knew she was going to die. Just like this. Naked.

They grabbed her lovers robe and threw it over her as she was pushed through the door and out into the street. She looked back to find him and they locked knowing eyes. This was the last time they would see each other alive. Her heart broke when she caught the smell of him on his robe.

The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone… -John 8:1

This is it. They drug her out in the street as the crowd gathered. She was terrified and worried about him. She looked for him. He can’t see her die like this.

“Please, Father, don’t let him see me die like this.”

A few of them went up to a man in the street. It was Jesus, the prophet. The man who touches blind eyes to make them see. The man who speaks four words and the lame walk. But, what can he do about sin? What can this man with dirty feet and messy hair do about the law? Nothing.

They formed a circle around her and told him what she had done. She lowered her head to hide her face behind her hair. She can’t even argue on her behalf. They were right about her. She did those things. She listened to them make something ugly out of what didn’t feel ugly. They spoke in venomous spit about her love. Making her hate herself. Making her see her sin for what it was.

She watched a tear fall and make a puff of dust rise at her feet. She didn’t want the earth to move because of her. She wanted to disappear. She moved her toes to cover her foot and kept her shoulders tucked in.

A body draws in to itself in order to protect it. Like an infant only a few hours old, like a child bracing himself against a hit, like a little girl when she’s sick, like a woman in labor, like an old man on the edge of death. Her body drew into itself. Only this time, her mother couldn’t run to her and her father couldn’t use his booming voice to be more frightening than what frightened her. She was alone. She deserved what she was about to get.

She has flashes of who she was and who she could have been. She wished that somebody could come inside of her and feel what she felt. That she wasn’t a bad person, that she was sorry.

When Jesus heard about her sin, something made her look up. He had kind eyes, normally, and if she saw anger in them, it would crush her. It would solidify her despair. Hopeless and weak, she looked up to catch his eye.

They looked pained. Oh, that’s so much worse. His eyebrows furrowed and he winced. His eyes watered and he shuddered from his belly to his shoulders.

Oh, God…

That’s what crushed her. The look on his face told her that she did this to him. She didn’t just do this to herself, her lover, or her own spouse, her friends. She did this to him. Her stomach cramped and her knees gave. The men holding her tightened their grip.

“Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” -John 8:5

She watched as knuckles became white around stones she hadn’t noticed before. She imagined them hitting her. She would almost welcome it. A different kind of pain. She pictured them hitting her legs and her back. But when she pictured them hitting her neck or her eye, she began to shake. She was so afraid.

Her mother made her a dress when she was a little girl. The dress was so itchy, but she wore it anyway because it made her mother happy. She used to put flowers in her hair and dance in the field while her father worked. She pretended she was a princess and would one day be carried away by a prince in an exotic land. She made her father laugh with her stories of taming lions and singing in a choir of birds.

Where was her daddy now? She needed to be seen for who she really is. Not the mistake that she made, but for the little girl that she used to be. She was panicking. None of these men knew her. All of the women looked at her in disgust. She wanted to walk out of her skin and show them that she agreed. She hated what she did and they were right! But she was stuck. Her skin would not open up and let her out. And so…

The sound of feet surrounded her. The heavy breath of religion and law beat down on her like the sun. The devil poised to pounce and drag his victim home.

“Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him.”- John 8:6

Why won’t he answer them? We all know what the law says. She watches him through her hair, trying to keep her convulsing body from being heard.

He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone at her.” -John  8:7

They all stood up straighter. Confusion started whispering among them.

Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt. -John 8:8

Puffs of dirt began rising to the rhythm of thump as the rocks hit the ground. One by one, the men turned on their heels and walked away.

She stood in shock and confusion. She dared not move. And then, for the first time, he spoke to her.

“Where are they? Does no one condemn you?” -John 8:10

Is this a trick? He can see for himself that I am guilty. I am barely covered by a robe… But they left. They all walked away.

“No one, Master.”

“Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.” -John 8:11

Sometimes it’s hard to not wish for the actual punishment to fall on me. If I could pay for my sin, then maybe I could be free of it. Free from others. But the punishment for my sin fell on someone else. He paid for my sin. He set me free from it. He set me free from you. You who can only see my sin, but not the cross.

I once wore the robe of shame. No covering for my sin. And then he covered me, he forgave me and he covers me in a white wedding dress. White. He adorns me in a white wedding dress and I dance with flowers in my hair for my Father.

is this thing on?

I guest wrote on another blog to share the story of my affair. My goal, in general, is to use my story to help others either avoid the pitfall of an affair or find their way to the cross (often times in spite of religious roadblocks) when they’ve wandered off. I am very open about my mistakes and the thoughts I had at the time so that people can latch on to the transparent reality and learn or find hope.

I am a huge advocate for sharing your testimony (gritty and all) mostly because of this scripture:

“The Accuser of our brothers and sisters thrown out, who accused them day and night before God. THEY DEFEATED HIM THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB AND THE BOLD WORD OF THEIR WITNESS.” -Revelation 12:7

The problem that most people face when considering sharing their story is the backlash they will get from others… especially other Christians. There are so many of you who read these blogs and are on the verge of entering into the freedom, through sharing your testimony of sin vs. grace, and are hesitant because of the repercussions.  I want to post a reader’s comment here and then my response to her because I want you to face how ugly it can get and then hear the encouragement to keep moving forward.

Reader:

“This is a very sad tragedy. I do not find it to be a story of restoration or beauty. You married the man you had an affair with. Sometimes life is hard. Your spouses divorced you both right away…but you didn’t fight to save your marriage. You made a vow….vows are worth fighting for. I’m sorry but this is not a good thing that you have done. It doesn’t show redemption. It just shows that you are making do with the lemons that came rolling your way. You ARE very honest which is refreshing and beautiful, but I find no encouragement in this tale. It reads like a trashy romance novel. What about fighting for what is right? Why didn’t you try to hold on your marriages? What ever happened to covenants. I know many people who’s marriages have survived serious instances of adultery.

I am not saying this to be cruel. This is just my opinion. Thank you for your honesty….but this is NOT a good story about the redemption of God. This is about ugly sin…leading to more sadness and destruction. Why get married in the first place if you’re just going to leave your mate when life get’s really hard? Just because you were pregnant..maybe you could have given your baby up for adoption. Strong horrible words….but it was a terrible horrible sin to have an affair. Yes God’s grace is bountiful and his love heals all sins. He could have restored your covenant marriage. Instead you married the man you had an affair with. I’m sorry….but……puke. That is terrible!

I believe that some things are not breakable. Covenant marriage bonds are one of those things.”

Me:

‘Reader’s Name‘ said on Aug 21, 2009: In response to:

http://www.likeawarmcupofcoffee.com/home/?p=1043

“This reminds you to forgive those who hurt you….because that’s what Jesus is. He is forgiveness and redemption. Thank you for posting this story.”

‘Climbing Out of the Coffin’ and this post are the same story, only this time I talk about my sin in more detail. What changed? Did my sin reach an unforgivable level?

This woman’s most recent comment was not about me. It was about her. She has value and is loved and because of that, we do not need to worry about her. God will work out any issues with her faith when she’s ready.

‘But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.’ Romans 5:20 MSG

I want to encourage those of you who are thinking of coming out of hiding by ridding yourselves of the shame of past sin. People need to understand that there will always be those whose communication skills supersede their faith. You CAN tell the testimony of how your sin, at its worst, was no match for God’s ‘aggressive forgiveness called grace.’ For every unbeliever who throws rocks of doubt and condemnation at you, there are hundreds of thousands who gain the strength to stop hiding their sin (even forgiven sin) in shame. Seeing your nakedness and submission to God’s grace set other’s free is the greatest confirmation of restoration and purpose I’ve ever experienced. Those who have not seen their own personal worst still have that hell ahead of them. Patience and love are the only things to offer them and then keep walking forward. You have a job to do.

Satan was the Accuser, and your eye witness account of Jesus and the grace for which He died takes the venom out of his mouth. Even if he’s using someone else’s mouth to do his talking, your testimony trumps it. Keeping your shame hidden is exactly how he uses it against you. Anyone who wants to heap your shame on you is not working for Jesus. So, use the weapon you’ve been given. Tell your story.

“The Accuser of our brothers and sisters thrown out, who accused them day and night before God. THEY DEFEATED HIM THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB AND THE BOLD WORD OF THEIR WITNESS.” -Revelation 12:7

One last bit of encouragement I want to pass on to you: When someone cannot move past the gory details of your sin and their lack of faith makes them incapable of witnessing the transformation power of God’s redemptive grace, you do not have to worry. They are speaking completely on their own behalf simply because if scripture is true, then God has no recollection of your confessed sin and has no idea why his child is accusing you of these things.

step up to the microphone

when the mask slips

I’ll give you the words and wisdom that will reduce all your accusers to stammers and stutters. -Luke 21:15

There are people who use religion to trample others in an attempt to build their religious stilts. They want to be the tallest clown in the circus. Self-promotion and religious smooth talk are the keys to success in the religious pageant. Talking to them is useless, they suck you into their pompous religious rattle and game. Their pride is blinding and eventually they will fall over what they can’t see.

Don’t let yourselves get taken in by religious smooth talk. God gets furious with people who are full of religious sales talk but want nothing to do with him. Don’t even hang around people like that. -Ephesians 5:6-7

I know a man who recently told his old friend that he painted him in the worst light possible to several important authorities in his denomination in order to insure his own advantage. When the two were alone, he admitted to maneuvering the network in order to get his way, but there was no one around to witness it.

Or was there? There is hope for the man who refuses to depart from the law of Love no matter the cost.

Haman was a man of authority and prestige. He was able to take advantage of his position to push religious and political issues that the king never would have agreed to had he known. Esther was an adopted girl who had no breeding or prestige at all. Haman’s life intersected with Esther’s because his religious agenda was to annihilate the people whom she loved. She heard from God and played it cool while he made a public display of building a gallows that was seventy-five feet high. Haman’s pride was a blinding force and he made sure to put the gallows near his house. When the time was right and the public gallows complete, Haman’s pride walked him into the end of his tyranny.

Haman was hanged on the very gallows that he had built. -Esther 7:10

The chapter that mentions the bully is named after the the ‘nobody’ who God chose to make a ’somebody.’

Using the scriptures as a contract with loopholes is like trying to fight your way out of a tangle of cords on scaffolding. Eventually you will hang yourself.

Your enemy shakes hands and greets you like an old friend, all the while conniving against you. When he speaks warmly to you, don’t believe him for a minute; he’s just waiting for the chance to rip you off. No matter how cunningly he conceals his malice, eventually his evil will be exposed in public. -Proverbs 26:24

There is nothing like public contempt to choke out pride and self-righteousness. And maybe that’s all it will take. A thorn shoved into pride will make the truth coherent. Smooth words reduced to stammers and stutters.

You can’t keep your true self hidden forever; before long you’ll be exposed. You can’t hide behind a religious mask forever; sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known. You can’t whisper one thing in private and preach the opposite in public; the day’s coming when those whispers will be repeated all over town. -Luke 12:3

your mask is slipping

elephant in the room

The other day I heard a preacher illustrate a point in his sermon by bringing up the past failure of another popular preacher. His message needed to be heard and his point was valid. However, he never followed the damning comment up with the torrent of grace he’s experienced since the tragedy. This pastor’s voice is a tool that God uses. However, the minute he uses his mouth to speak of an instance, of which God has no recollection, is the very moment that God’s words are removed.

If a paralyzed man is healed, but is never allowed to walk, then he is still paralyzed. If a woman never leaves her home because she’s afraid of being victimized again, then she is still her attacker’s victim. If the sin is forgiven, but you still treat him like a sinner, then sin still wins.

If we are really in a spiritual battle, as I believe we are, then the stories of men and women of God being wounded by the enemy will not end. If you’re fighting, then you will get hurt. The front line is the most dangerous place to be and those who are not there should be the nurses and doctors dragging them into the tent and nursing them back to health. The enemy is trying to sabotage us and turn us on each other and it’s working. Christians are supposed to be to the body of Christ, what white blood cells are to the physical body.

We are fighting a battle of which we have very limited perspective. We mistakenly make decisions based on what we can see, feel and touch. We forget that the battle is not of flesh and blood. It’s the sin that you must fight against, not the man. It’s the sin that must be cut out. If you surgically remove the flesh and blood from the sin, the sin remains. If you remove the sin, the man remains.

If you really understood the role that sin plays in the fight, you would know that sin is the enemy, not the sinner. A man got cocky and left himself vulnerable. The enemy took aim and hit a bulls eye. That is not where the enemy wins. Where the enemy makes his score is in the place where the sin of his target rivets through the church and makes people doubt. It’s your faith in the implication of sin that gives sin its power. You can remove the man, but his sin is still there. It is still there because you removed the man. Sin gets it’s life from the space in the empty seat. Sin is the elephant in the room.  If sin is witnessed, then grace must be witnessed also. Otherwise, grace does not exist to those watching.

If you believe that Christians don’t sin, then you separate the man from the cross when he does. If Christians don’t sin, then he must not have been a Christian. If he was not a Christian, then all of the flowers he planted in his life are marked and dug up. If he was not a Christian, but said he was, then you cannot believe him when he says he has been forgiven. Every seed the man plants for the remainder of his life must be tainted. In order to avoid the risk of any man forgetting, there is an army of properly accredited people who will remind them.

Who wants a man to be separated from the cross? Who wants a Christian artist’s songs of praise removed from the shelves or an anointed pastor’s words removed from his flock? Who wants an entire world to see that if you fall, you can’t get back up?

Don’t use the platform that you have and the title you earned to be a hired hand for the enemy. Be careful with your gift. If you have to use the failure of another to make an illustration, make sure it illustrates the finished work of Jesus.

placebo effect

What does our sin say about us?

Seriously. When do you reach the point where you won’t screw up?

If you never reach the point where you don’t make bad choices or choose selfishly, then what does sin say about you?

All have sinned and fallen short… Yes, I know. Dig deeper. Why do you hide your mistakes? Why do you think of good excuses, should they get found out? Why does your opinion about someone else change when their selfish secrets get exposed?

Sins aren’t supposed to have weight, but in the lives of friends and lovers, they most certainly do and saying the contrary is as contrived as a condescending would-be who gets a buzz off of being a little bit better than everybody else. – Grace Is For Sinners {page 190}

We know the way it’s supposed to be, but our actions, when the situation gets real, are where we can find the evidence of our faith.

Your sin says nothing new about you. If the Bible is true, then God knew all about you and your mistakes long before you arrived at the day of making them.

“If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” -John 20:22

Now, regarding the one who started all this—the person in question who caused all this pain—I want you to know that I am not the one injured in this as much as, with a few exceptions, all of you. So I don’t want to come down too hard. What the majority of you agreed to as punishment is punishment enough. Now is the time to forgive this man and help him back on his feet. If all you do is pour on the guilt, you could very well drown him in it. My counsel now is to pour on the love. -2 Corinthians 2:5

belief makes it work