Now God, don't hold out on me, don't hold back Your passion. Your love and truth are all that keeps me together. When troubles ganged up on me, a mob of sins past counting, I was so swamped by guilt I couldn't see my way clear. More guilt in my heart than hair on my head, so heavy the guilt that my heart gave out.
Soften up, Lord, and intervene; hurry and get me some help. (The Message, vs. 11-13)
I don't know how the world does it. Walks around with their guilt strapped around their necks like albatrosses. It is a heavy burden - the point of Pilgrim's Progress. It feeds entire industries - drugs, alcohol, pornography. Because if we don't deal with our sinful nature, we medicate it. Things eventually catch up to us. What goes around comes around. Money cannot fix it. Power cannot dissuade it. We are all affected by the choices we make.
I remember an older neighbor lady who lived across the street from us when the kids were little. I worked out in our yard every day then and she would come over to talk with me. Evelyn. Stout and cocky, she laughed when I spoke about my love for God. I used to believe in Him, but then I just started doing what I wanted to do, and He didn't kill me or anything. I'm no better off, nor worse, for having given up on Him. Hmmm. Hard to argue with that. I'm sure she wasn't going about murdering or pilfering. Her sins were probably pretty mundane. Not the sort of thing that fills the front page of the newspaper or would ever even be mentioned toward the back, with the obituaries. The obits. That is the real test, I guess. Where are we when our picture (taken when we were twenty instead of when we are eighty-two), black and white, looks out at the early morning crowd reading through the Press Enterprise on their way to work on the Metro? Even if our day of reckoning doesn't come until then, it comes. It matters what happens to our guilt.
I was talking with a friend yesterday. Her religious views inform her that she must try to be perfect....as perfect as possible. Talk about creating guilt. In this scenario, we are set up for immense failure. If my goal is to try to be perfect, I might as well quit before I get started. That was the whole trouble with the old covenant, the law of Moses. We just couldn't do it! If we fail in one point, we fail in all of it. So, what do we do?
The answer is simple. Too simple for some. We offer a sacrifice. We trust in the blood of a Lamb killed on a gruesome altar. The message that points to Christ on the cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It's written: I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots. (I Corinthians 1 - The Message)
Jesus is the Truth that holds us together. God, the Father, has intervened once and for all to rid us of our shame and guilt. For God so loved the world....He came. To our heavy burdened hearts He said: Throw all your cares on Me because My burden is light. To our lives weighed down by our own choices, He declares: I did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Me might be saved. When we are pressed in, cornered and perplexed, He says: Do not lose heart, for I have overcome the world.
If we are trying to live the Christian life without Him, we lose. If we are trying to live any life without Him, we will be burdened down by many of our choices. We ain't perfect! Ain't never gonna be! But He is sheer perfection and it is His design to live in us - throwing out the old self and building His life in our fragile tents. He Who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it in us!!!! Not only are we forgiven today, we are empowered to live a new life because of the great compassion of a God Who does hear and move quickly on our behalf, even if we are in a mess we created with our own hands.
Soften up, Lord, and intervene; hurry and get me some help. (The Message, vs. 11-13)
I don't know how the world does it. Walks around with their guilt strapped around their necks like albatrosses. It is a heavy burden - the point of Pilgrim's Progress. It feeds entire industries - drugs, alcohol, pornography. Because if we don't deal with our sinful nature, we medicate it. Things eventually catch up to us. What goes around comes around. Money cannot fix it. Power cannot dissuade it. We are all affected by the choices we make.
I remember an older neighbor lady who lived across the street from us when the kids were little. I worked out in our yard every day then and she would come over to talk with me. Evelyn. Stout and cocky, she laughed when I spoke about my love for God. I used to believe in Him, but then I just started doing what I wanted to do, and He didn't kill me or anything. I'm no better off, nor worse, for having given up on Him. Hmmm. Hard to argue with that. I'm sure she wasn't going about murdering or pilfering. Her sins were probably pretty mundane. Not the sort of thing that fills the front page of the newspaper or would ever even be mentioned toward the back, with the obituaries. The obits. That is the real test, I guess. Where are we when our picture (taken when we were twenty instead of when we are eighty-two), black and white, looks out at the early morning crowd reading through the Press Enterprise on their way to work on the Metro? Even if our day of reckoning doesn't come until then, it comes. It matters what happens to our guilt.
I was talking with a friend yesterday. Her religious views inform her that she must try to be perfect....as perfect as possible. Talk about creating guilt. In this scenario, we are set up for immense failure. If my goal is to try to be perfect, I might as well quit before I get started. That was the whole trouble with the old covenant, the law of Moses. We just couldn't do it! If we fail in one point, we fail in all of it. So, what do we do?
The answer is simple. Too simple for some. We offer a sacrifice. We trust in the blood of a Lamb killed on a gruesome altar. The message that points to Christ on the cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It's written: I'll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I'll expose so-called experts as crackpots. (I Corinthians 1 - The Message)
Jesus is the Truth that holds us together. God, the Father, has intervened once and for all to rid us of our shame and guilt. For God so loved the world....He came. To our heavy burdened hearts He said: Throw all your cares on Me because My burden is light. To our lives weighed down by our own choices, He declares: I did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Me might be saved. When we are pressed in, cornered and perplexed, He says: Do not lose heart, for I have overcome the world.
If we are trying to live the Christian life without Him, we lose. If we are trying to live any life without Him, we will be burdened down by many of our choices. We ain't perfect! Ain't never gonna be! But He is sheer perfection and it is His design to live in us - throwing out the old self and building His life in our fragile tents. He Who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it in us!!!! Not only are we forgiven today, we are empowered to live a new life because of the great compassion of a God Who does hear and move quickly on our behalf, even if we are in a mess we created with our own hands.
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