Your Move

(photo courtesy of www.spiritualwisdom.org.uk)

 Often, we find ourselves at a place of decisions that point to eternity. Those places of decision don’t occur just once in a lifetime, but we’re unlikely to know when our last opportunity shows up.

I touch relatively few hearts and minds in light of all the lives being lived at this moment. But, every adult I encounter has betrayed God at one time or another, perhaps even on a daily basis.

In the place of decision-making, we can identify with Judas, who betrayed Jesus then went out and hung himself; he was unable to forgive himself and unable to believe that God could forgive him as well.

But, we can also identify with Peter, who denied Jesus three times (that we know of) yet submitted himself to God and received forgiveness for what he’d done and went on to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in a glorious manner, denying himself for Christ’s sake.

One of my favorite scripture choruses declares, “It’s Your kindness that leads us to repentance, O Lord….” It derives it’s message from Romans 2:4 (probably the NIV). Looking at the Amplified Version, we read more clearly, what the author says. “…are you [so blind as to] trifle with and presume upon and despise and underestimate the wealth of His kindness and forbearance and long-suffering patience? Are you unmindful or actually ignorant [of the fact] that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repent (to change your mind and inner man to accept God’s will)?”

Too many times I’ve beat myself up over my own bad decisions, choices I’ve made which glorified sin and turned my back on the God Who loves me unconditionally. Too many times I’ve watched others go through the same thing, sometimes refusing to admit they’re wallowing in guilt and shame; running from God and His antidote for the sickness that destroys them.

The whole point of the gospel is to reveal the Savior that came to take our guilt and shame and the punishment for our sins, so that we could live life abundantly and in harmony with Him, forever. Jesus died in our place so that we could have eternal life with Him. His love is beyond our comprehension. He IS love.

The darkness that envelops us comes from the enemy, and from within our own hearts.

God is still kind to you. He’s still leading you to Himself. He does not condemn you. He still trusts you to choose eternal freedom through Christ Jesus. He has not forgotten you.

It’s your move.

More Brick Work

So, some of the bricks in our walls represent the sin in our lives. Those are tough ones to disassemble. But we can do it.

Other bricks in our walls represent the sins of others. When we sin, we aren’t the only ones affected by that sin. Our sin affects everyone around us, whether we realize it or not. Yes, even our secret sins. Just as when others sin, sometimes we’re the one in the fallout.

So to pull out those bricks, we need the essential key of forgiveness. I’ve written about this before, but it keeps resonating in my heart, so I’ll keep writing about it. Maybe it’s more for me than you.

Matthew 6:14 & 15 tell us, For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (KJV)

Matthew 14:21 & 22 go on to say, Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. (KJV)

Forgiving is a big deal to God. He mercifully forgives and expects us to do likewise. Even the familiar prayer many of us say from memory indicates that we already know this when we declare: …and forgive us our debts/trespasses/sins…as we forgive others… If God were only as forgiving as we are, we’d all burn in hell forever.

But forgiving comes easy to God, we contend. Thank God for His mercy, but our sin grieves Him far more than the sins of others grieve us. Not so, you say? While it is accurate to say that the sins of others can cripple us, suck us down into victimhood and torment our minds. They can sometimes scar us physically and emotionally. They can haunt us, playing out in our memories over and over again. Believe me, I know.

But Jesus says, The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10 KJV) This is why He lovingly instructs us to forgive those who have sinned against us; to set us free to live abundantly!

Forgiveness is not giving permission to anyone to hurt you or take advantage of you time and time again. Forgiveness does not suggest that what they’ve done is okay. Forgiveness says nothing about what they’ve done – but everything about who you are. Forgiveness set you free to knock down a few more of the bricks in your walls.

The Nitty-Gritty

If sin is more than an act, but a mindset, what mindset does it envelop?

A mindset that says this particular sin is acceptable, or makes excuses for, or denounces that said sin is, in fact, sinful – is in itself, sin.

Our culture and era isn’t the first to ignore or accept sin and the problems it creates.

To acknowledge sin requires acknowledging responsibility for the sin. When we call evil good – or just look the other way while sin carries on, we are saying it’s acceptable; we’re willing to live with it. When we call something acceptable while knowing God hates it, we hurt the very essence of the ties that bind us to our Creator; we grieve God Himself. The creature is then calling himself smarter than the Creator.

To acknowledge sin requires acknowledging the need for a Savior, which pride cannot stand.

To deny that certain thoughts, words or deeds are sinful, we deny the dominion of God; we lift ourselves up as equal to God, while oftentimes denying God’s very existence. An evasive tactic?

Most adults I encounter know what the Bible calls sinful. But most adults I encounter indulge in a good many of those practices anyway, willingly and openly. Whether we’re lying or gossiping or committing adultery or just plain ol’ hating on someone, we have “good reasons” for breaking God’s “code of ethics”, so we continue in our sin. Sometimes, if a sin is “big” enough or causes bad enough consequences, we find our way to repentance. But most of our sin is swept under the proverbial rug.

A huge point we’re missing when we actively pursue sinful behaviors is that God doesn’t label them sin to curtail our pleasure. Rather, they are abominations to Him because He knows their results will eventually cause us harm and pain, even destruction. He’s simply being protective of His children.

Yet we rebel.

Most of us have read a quote that says something like, Remaining in unforgiveness is like swallowing poison and expecting the person who’s wronged us to suffer from it; the point being that we choose unforgiveness despite the harm we know we’ll suffer from it, because the hurt we’re already suffering seems greater. Our own logic reigns in our hearts.

But God says, For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9 KJV)

And He tells us to, Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5 KJV)

As a parent, I know that playing with fire might be exciting and exhilarating for my child, but I also know the dangers at hand that he hasn’t yet seen. Should I let him play with fire to discover for himself that it could kill him and those he loves, or at the very least hurt him or destroy cherished possessions?

Yet as adults, God does allow us to make our own decisions.

We all have to answer for ourselves, do I choose to play with fire and suffer the consequences, even though I’ve been forewarned? Or do I trust that God really does know what He’s talking about?

For me, for all of us, it’s time for an alter of repentance.

Artwork by Joseph Poma (5 years old) - sin seperates, but that one drop of Jesus' blood saves us!

RFDS - Part 3 - The Dream

If you've not read the previous two posts - this one may seem quite out of the blue...

This is one of two dreams I had one right after the other, with the same interpretation.

It took place at night on a country cinder-road. A man was buried in the road up to his neck. He was completely defenseless. Somehow I knew that he didn’t deserve to be where he was, he was an innocent man. There stood over him a man who appeared to be a mafia type character, mocking him and talking harshly to him, swearing, accusing him of things, putting him down and snickering at him as he swung a large golf club at his head, hitting him repeatedly. The man’s head became bloody and disfigured. He cried, he screamed and begged for mercy. The man ignored his pleas, laughing louder with every whack of the golf club, seemingly taking great pleasure in tormenting the man. From the side of the road I cried and begged for mercy for the man, insisting that he hadn’t done anything wrong. I went unheard. I was invisible.
A semi-truck approached, his headlights shined brightly in the darkness. There was no way the driver would see this bloody little head sticking up in the road. The mafia man laughed loudly as he calmly and confidently walked off to the other side of the road to watch, gleefully, as the man was killed.
I screamed to the truck driver, unheard. I ran out and jumped in front of the man’s head putting my hands up as if to stop the truck. In an instant, the truck stopped just before hitting us, inches from my hand.
I woke up, frightened.

The interpretation:
Since I am all the characters in the dream, it's gross to think that I am not only the innocent man in the ground being bloodied, but I am also the man swinging the golf club, laughing!
The man buried in the road represents me – innocent because I am washed in the blood of the Lamb, buried with Christ. Defenseless, because my only defense is Jesus, there is nothing I can do for myself.
The mafia man represents the me that is always beating myself up and putting myself down. The blows to the head represent the battlefield of my mind, the fights I've allowed to go on in there. I torment myself with the lies of the devil by allowing his lies into my mind and believing them. Lies that say I’m unworthy, I’m worthless, I’m guilty, I’m fat, I’m ugly and a waste of time – all the insults the mafia man hurled at the man in the ground.
The semi-truck represents sure death.
The invisible me represents the spirit of God that lives within me that came to my defense, able even to stop a racing semi-truck on a dime, preventing my needless, pointless death.