Posted: September 14th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: purpose, sin |
9 Comments »
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.
Posted: September 11th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: grace, sin |
25 Comments »
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.
Posted: September 6th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: grace, sin |
8 Comments »
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
Posted: September 4th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: sin |
5 Comments »
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
Posted: September 2nd, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: grace, sin |
8 Comments »
You’re blessed when the tears flow freely. Joy comes with the morning. -Luke 6:21
She felt her reason connect with want and a surge of excitement put a giggle in her exhale. She felt something tug within. When she made her decision, the flesh on her bones began to tingle with life. If the thought alone was enough to wake the ache that laid dormant in the grain of her muscles, then what would it be like to actually do it?
The fruit made her reach and it tried to hold on to the branch when her grasp tugged it downward. The tree knew she knew some, but not all. The stem held his place, the only trophy for his defiant fight to save her.
Her heart raced and she laughed at herself. Her skin was flushed from the rush of blood and all of this awakening made doing wrong feel more right in ways she never knew existed. Her teeth met fruit and smashed her lip in the process. The juice ran down her chin and, as she reached the back of her hand to wipe it away, she heard the earth move behind her and a twig snapped.
Pain burned his eyes and his mouth couldn’t move as fast as the tornado of confusion whirling in his skull. His chest told him that she had left him and his knees started to give out under his swaying body. Tears thought about offering their services, but once they got close to the storm, their insufficiency made them turn back. He searched his soul for a way to bring her back and he came to an idea that made his spirit try to rip free of his flesh.
Her secret dimmed the light in her eyes, but she didn’t know it yet. The shape in her shoulders told him that she had changed. He stared at her hand and watched the juice run between her fingers and fall from her wrist. He loved her and even though he knew better, he couldn’t imagine being without her. He used his teeth to take him to the place where she went.
Where part of them came alive another part of them died. They discovered that they knew a little, but they didn’t know it all. Their flesh had a choice and somewhere in the night their flesh killed their spirit and the only thing left was a cheap replica of what used to be.
As they walked hollow steps, their shaky voices used empty words that defied the death they both knew was there. The Earth cried out to the Creator.
The grass screamed when she got too close, the tree sounded a whistle when it felt her breath, the fruit shrieked when he caught her hand’s grip and the whole world wailed when God’s beloved spit out the seed.
He waited out of sight to give them their space. Their independence gave Him stay when He wanted to run to them. Their secret became a lie and the lie fed their flesh and killed their spirit. He knew they died when He felt their breath return to His nostrils.
When the defiance turned into despair and shadows became their prison, He came calling. He closed His eyes as the silence surrounded Him. Laughter used to sway the trees and dancing used to light up the dirt. His creation told him the shape Adam’s crouched body had taken as he hid in shame. The shrub told Him that Eve’s tears were soaking their leaves.
She tried to get some sleep, but the hissing voice kept slithering over her flesh.
‘It’s in your blood now, Eve.’ The hissing was all around her and coming from inside her. She ran to the creek and emptied her stomach into the current.
‘You can’t get rid of it.’ It sounded like her voice. She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled on her hair.
‘You’ve ruined everything. He’ll never forgive you.’
She sat on her knees rocking back and forth trying to drown out the accusations with her screams. There was no one she could call for help. There was no escape, no relief, no finish. Death could not touch death. Despair goes too far down.
All of her justifications ribboned through her head like a recording. White noise laced her selfish laughter and a video stutter of her bite…her bite…played over and over and over. The spinning and quaking. The cackling thoughts and visions dragging her in circles by her hair.
The night sears the soul and born is the desire to let go. She didn’t want herself anymore. She hated her independence to the point of hating the sound of her own voice.
That’s how He found her. Dirt found the tracks of tears and juice on her face and hands making them look like a road map of failure and remorse. He sat down beside her because He knew she couldn’t move. Her sorry made mud under her head and words were not good enough to touch the shudder in her ribs.
He told her His story while she lay beside Him. His words fluttered life and the breath that came from His mouth found it’s way into her nostrils making it her spirit stir to life again.
‘Yours is the first of many journey’s, Eve, and you must not forget me when you leave this garden. I chose you before I formed you and I let you choose me. This is the way it has to be and I’ve had it planned even before the foundation of this Earth was in place. Hell will kidnap my children and I will pay the ransom. I’ve always known I would do this for you. I’ll use my life to take me where you are and then I’ll take you home with me. You may cry at night, Eve, but joy will be yours in the morning.’
Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ’s sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. 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. It’s because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God. -1 Peter 1:18-21
Posted: August 24th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: sin |
9 Comments »
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.
Posted: August 14th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: grace, sin |
2 Comments »
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.
You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. – Psalm 139:16
When God tells you He loves you and when he calls you into purpose, he is doing all of that knowing exactly who you are and what you’ll do. This removes the power of sin to change our course. It may surprise you, but it doesn’t surprise God.
Your sin has not messed up God’s plan for your life. Your sin does not have the power to relabel you. Your sin is why Jesus came. If you could have avoided sinning, he could have avoided dying for it.
Anyone who gives up on you because of your failure, anyone who expects the worst from you because of your past mistakes, anyone who cannot restore you to an upright position has no clue who God is or what the work Jesus did on the cross means. Their ignorance has the potential to destroy you if you don’t understand it either. It’s the placebo effect run rampant! We behave according to what we believe and if we behave as though sin has the power, then it’s your belief that gave it that power.
“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
Posted: July 29th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: grace, sin |
3 Comments »
I just learned that a twenty-something year old woman in Springfield, Missouri was told she was no longer welcome in her church. She was warned that if she came on the property, they would call the police on her. She was given a six-page letter from one the leaders at church telling her that her ‘witness’ is responsible for sending her entire family to hell.
She is the only Christian in her family. She’s gone to this church, by herself, since she was a little kid in the Youth Group. She grew up to become a worker in the same Youth Group and now she has been shunned.
This girl who needs her Christian friends now, more than ever, has been cast out. Her crime was getting a divorce after two years of marriage counseling trying to recover from her husbands’ affair.
Never mind the fact that the Bible gives permission to divorce a cheating spouse. When is it okay to tell a broken lamb that she is not welcome in God’s house anymore? Are you representing Jesus when you threaten a sobbing girl to keep her from coming to your church?
Which version of Jesus are you representing?
Are you the Jesus clinking wine glasses at a table full of shady characters?
Levi gave a large dinner at his home for Jesus. Everybody was there, tax men and other disreputable characters as guests at the dinner. The Pharisees and their religion scholars came to his disciples greatly offended. “What is he doing eating and drinking with crooks and ‘sinners’?” – Luke 5:29-30
Are you the Jesus who is telling stories to unwind the riddles of God’s unrelenting love?
By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” – Luke 15:1
Are you the Jesus who stands up for the one who has no right to stand?
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 and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?”…Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” - John 8:1-6
Or, maybe, you are exactly like the Pharisees in those scriptures.
When scripture talks about false teachers, their number one criteria is doing away with the power of what Jesus did on the cross. When you kick a fallen brother out, you are denying Christ to him. You are causing divisions and demanding loyalty to your interpretation of the condition of another’s heart.
But there were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you. They’ll smuggle in destructive divisions, pitting you against each other—biting the hand of the One who gave them a chance to have their lives back! They’ve put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction, but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can’t tell right from wrong. – 2 Peter 2:1-2
A fraud stands in between the sinner and the cross. A fraud lives a legalistic life, setting itself up to maintain with out the need for grace. They position themselves to where you have to clear everything through them. Frauds perpetuate the sin of another in an attempt to make themselves look holy in contrast.
Your lives are roadblocks to God’s kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won’t let anyone else in either. – Matthew 23:13
Don’t you know that you can use your fallen sister to spotlight the grace of God for all of those who doubt that what Jesus did was enough? Or do you not think that what Jesus did was enough?
Here’s a word you can take to heart and depend on: Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I’m proof—Public Sinner Number One—of someone who could never have made it apart from sheer mercy. And now he shows me off—evidence of his endless patience—to those who are right on the edge of trusting him forever. – 1 Timothy 1:15-19
False teachers minimize the abolition of sin in the presence of grace. False teachers perpetuate the sin with their response to it. They lead their unthinking masses who have no backbone into alley’s of confusion and co-dependance and demand divisions among the believers. Threats of hell and disappointment keep them quiet until the cries of the wounded lamb die down.
Only self-righteous, scripturally-ignorant leaders make a show of their religion by disrobing a wounded sister and marching her debilitating shame in front of a shock-stricken group of shackled followers.
Who is most proud of your stance? The Christ who died to set that girl free? Or the anti-Christ who hates the audacious and all-inclusive grace that the cross represents?
You think she deserves it. Don’t we all? Point your accusing finger while reciting her sin and I’ll tell you that her sin is irrelevant in the unabashed light of grace.
Put your accusing finger down. You may get mistaken for somebody else….
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 12:10-11
We will not shut our mouths about God’s grace. This is my eye-witness account.
Let your rocks drop to the ground. Grace Is For Sinners.
Posted: June 30th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: grace, purpose, sin |
Comments Off
A girl started talking to me about her faith the other day. She’s getting involved in youth leadership and was excited to tell me about her commitment to God and getting involved in changing lives.
She was sweet and excited. A really great person. But, because of what I’ve learned over the past four years, I know that being a great person is not what it’s about.
You don’t commit to God like you commit to working out or the way you would commit to a product you’re selling.
This girl wasn’t like that, but she did talk a lot and I never found a lot of real substance in what she was saying. I liked her, but I had to ask her some stuff so that I could dig out the substance.
I asked her if she ever distanced herself from a fellow Christian because of that Christian’s struggle with sin. Her answer was yes. In order to keep herself pure, she phased out the friends who were not in the same place as her. She didn’t think she was better, she just didn’t want them to affect her and her walk with Christ.
My stomach sunk. Since when can another person’s weakness taint you? Are you afraid of what people will think if you’re a friend of someone who is obviously not perfect? That may be too rhetorical. How about I rephrase. Are you afraid that the sins and failures of others will have an effect on your relationship with God? We behave as though they do.
Christians are not meant to lock themselves away with those who are just like them and only come out in teams dressed in matching clothes to recruit others to their strange warehouse. It’s a scary picture, almost like night of the living dead. Only they’re not zombies, they’re the perfume sales ladies from the mall. Run.
This girl wasn’t like that either. When I asked her to clarify the situation, she explained that she is on a newly discovered path to not being a pot smoker. Her friends still do and if she hangs out with them, she’ll do the very thing that God has asked her to stop doing.
I get it. I think she’s smart. I had another challenge for her, though… Does she think that God is upset about her friend smoking pot? Her answer was yes.
That’s where I come in.
achem:
I took her through a little mental journey to show her what her actions and beliefs look like when you step back from them.
“Let’s just say, hypothetically, that in my life there are three things that I have going on. One: I’m a pathological liar. Two: I am having sex with my boyfriend. Three: I smoke pot.
You have a weakness for pot and God is helping you let that go. Every time you smoke it, you get a little shock in your spirit and are unable to feel ‘okay’ about it. The more you experience your discomfort, the less you want to smoke until you’re finished with it for good. Now you want to help me.
You know that God has brought me a long way with my lying. Every time I told a lie, I’d get a sick feeling in my stomach and eventually I learned what made me lie and I started to change.
You don’t know that I am having sex with my boyfriend because I haven’t told you, but you do know about the pot. God is convicting me of sleeping with my boyfriend and I’m getting much, much better at avoiding the times when I’m not strong enough to say no.
You don’t know what God is doing in me. All you can see is what he hasn’t worked on yet. I’ve got my plate full and my heart right, but you are making me feel like something is wrong with my relationship with God. I trust you and respect you, so what you’re telling me is devastating. I’m starting to doubt my relationship with God.”
It’s one thing to avoid situations where you aren’t strong. However, we have to stop looking at the lives next to us and passing our judgment on their Christianity. Why aren’t you paying attention to what God is showing you about you? Is he not giving you little jolts in your spirit every once in a while? If not, then start freaking out. You’ve wandered off on your own, little lamb.
Comments Off
Posted: June 24th, 2009 |
Filed under: God, life | Tags: grace, sin |
11 Comments »
The audacity of grace is the hardest thing, as a Christian, to deal with. We serve a God who pardons sins with no recollection. But, we live with minds that remember them, full well. Why can’t we be like God? Why can’t we forget, too?
Wouldn’t our song have more life? If we could erase the pain, wouldn’t our step have more bounce? The memory and the scars tear us down to skin and bones. Bitterness soils our sheets. Pain flavors our toothpaste. Our resentment turns our coffee cold. Our shoes are heavy. Our empty stomachs bloat with stress.
Where is the glory of God in his forgiveness? Where does it help you for him to forgive them? They’re not even sorry!
Are we like Jonah? He preached to the Ninevites. Vile sinners, open and flagrant. Shameless. He told them what God told him to say and they repented. Then, Jonah, a prophet, a man of God, was furious. He practically spit on the work that God did when he pardoned the huge city of sin from their due.
‘Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. He yelled at God, “God! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness!’ - Jonah 4:1-2
The audacity of grace. This two-fisted forgiveness that uses no gauge. Mercy that shows no respect to whom the mercy takes justice from.
Where is the glory of God in his forgiveness, you ask? To whom do you wish to bestow glory? Yourself? Isn’t that why you’re angry? Isn’t that why you withhold grace?
Where does it help you for him to forgive them, you wonder? Is this about you? Maybe it is, but not in a way you think it is. Maybe it’s a device to aid you in letting go of your ‘self’. Maybe your pain is your plank.
You think they’re not sorry? What makes you an expert on the inner workings of another man’s heart?
‘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. … It’s important to look at things from God’s point of view. 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?’ – 1 Corinthians 4:5-7
You can sulk if you want.
‘God arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up. But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah’s head and he started to faint.‘ – Jonah 4:6-8
You can complain about the shade tree God grew for you one night and took away the next.
”What right do you have to get angry …?” – God, Jonah 4:9
Don’t be so shortsighted that you forget that there is so much that we don’t know and the only way to be right is to LOVE.
‘When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.’ – Romans 13:8
