Sometimes dealing with sin feels like trying to stay warm with a five-foot blanket—something is always sticking out. Somewhere is always cold. When I focus on taming one evil inclination I lose track of another.
**************
If hindsight were truly 20-20, people would never repeat their mistakes.
**************
Some people say, “We can’t be perfect,” and consider this an explanation for not trying.
*************
I sometimes get worked up by creating battles and debates with imaginary enemies. But, really, the critical enemy I need to concern myself with is me. No one has caused more damage to me than me.
**************
It’s interesting how people will justify a wrong by pointing out that “everyone does it”, or “my father did it”, or “you did it”, etc., as if that signifies something. Was it okay when they did it? If so, then no justification is needed in the first place. But if what those others did was wrong, then the observer failed twice. First he failed to recognize that repeating someone else’s wrong would also be a wrong. Then he went ahead and decided the action he hated actually served as a reason for doing it himself.
**************
Someone else’s “worse” does not make your bad good.
**************
People often take offense when another calls sin, “sin”, but if the observation is true, it is an act of mercy. If we see a person sitting on a ledge, calling out, “I am a bird; I will fly away,” will we sit back and watch? If I decide to run headlong into a moving car, my opinion about it being “good fun” is due for a rude correction.
**************
What God calls sin is fundamentally rebellion against him but, in a subordinate way, sin can also be understood as any self-damaging behavior. These two perspectives correspond exactly. To put it another way, whatever God calls holy behavior is healthy behavior.
**************
She is mean but doesn’t mean to be. (I know what that means.) We all have our styles of mean. Like dandelions, meanness is ubiquitous. Only the Holy Spirit can overcome meanness because, while we hate it, we love it.
***************
It is no thrill knowing that I am an integral part in the struggles of every relationship I’ve ever had.
****************
We are the undeserving. No one but Christ is deserving. In this sense all humans are equal. Still, we have a tendency to look around and say, “Well, some are more undeserving than others, if you know what I mean…and I won’t mention Bob by name…nor will I hint that his last name is Smith”.
Such a view is neither true nor logical. It’s like saying completely impossible is more impossible than impossible; it’s like saying very dead is more dead than dead. Some words conclude a discussion while their modifiers merely take up space.
“Undeserving” is one of those. It’s like saying we have all been examined in Holiness 101 and we have all received Fs. What’s the point of bragging about getting the highest F in the class? You still got exactly no credit. No, it’s worse than no credit. If you hadn’t taken the class you might at least be able to pretend to have the ability to pass it. Now that you’ve taken it you’ve proved your incompetence.
We all desire to make a mark in this world…and we have. The mark is F.
We, too, will have our statues pulled down by our jeering peers.
***************
People don’t need to learn math; they’re intuitively mathematical. At the place where I work when you ask for X, you get X ÷ 3; when you ask for it within Y time it arrives in Y x 3.
****************
We have all committed terrible sins. This does not mean that God hates us; it means that we hate God.
***************
I worry that I don’t give my sin enough consideration, that I am not sufficiently disturbed by it, and that I don’t spend much effort or thought in repenting of it. My appreciation of my own sin tends to the academic—orthodox enough, but dispassionate. I suppose this is partly due to a proper belief that God has put my sin out of his mind. He remembers it no more. Therefore, his perception of me is confined to the appropriate me (however small a fraction that may be of the present total me. I suppose he sees the small fraction of the present appropriate me, plus the everlasting, uncorrupted me…so that ends up being a rather large fraction, doesn’t it?) So I like to join him in this perception and think of myself in the same positive light.
This does not mean I think sin is inconsequential. No, sin is an offense to God. And by “offense” I don’t think it means God is thin-skinned, balling up his fists at slights. He sees beyond the insults of man, recognizing them as the rantings of fools. To slander God does him no damage, but it can confuse the impressionable. All sin damages the created order—it spoils relationships; it injures creatures and the environment; it disrupts the peace; and it disrupts God’s relationship with his creation. Sin falsifies reality by calling bad good and good bad. It proclaims the insufficiency and carelessness of God. Sin leads to sin; destruction leads to destruction. Sin substitutes chaos for peace and replaces love with selfishness and apathy. If we were without sin we would be happy.
But there is happiness in thinking of myself the way God sees me, i.e., spotless. It brings a lightness to the soul.
******************
Knowledge is not necessarily a good thing. Knowledge in the hands of the wicked represents for everyone else a terror.
******************
Just because everyone is doing it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad idea.
******************
A few years ago I broke a collarbone in a biking accident. A truck pulled out of a parking lot directly into my path. I slammed on the brakes and flew over the handlebars. A number of people suggested I sue the truck driver and his company. One person went so far as to tell my story to a lawyer who, in turn, suggested I had a legal case, and he provided me with his card.
But I knew from the beginning it was not entirely the truck driver’s fault. I was angry with him when I got up from the crash, and I was stunned and hurting. I knew I had been riding fast; I knew about the parking entrance; I knew it was screened by a hedge; I knew cars often pulled out of it without appropriate caution; I even knew my front brake was a bit grabby. I shared responsibility with the truck driver.
Sin is often like that. There are no sins committed on this planet that are not, to some degree, my responsibility. Take, for example, the cruel, terroristic bombings inflicted around the world by Muslim extremists. I struggle to avoid hating those evil people and, yet, I share in their acts.
Have I prayed faithfully for their salvation? Have I supported missionary efforts on their behalf? Have I live self-indulgently in a society that takes its wealth through international exploitation? Have I written letters to my congress representatives suggesting better foreign policy? Have I been apathetic?
I know it is not possible for me to absorb or resolve the sins of the world, and I certainly believe it is improper to be morbid, self-hating, and filled with guilt for all kinds of nebulous, distant acts (or for my present, obvious sins, for that matter). But it is part of the Christian’s role to understand sin well and to sympathize with all in its bondage.
Recent Comments