Ready For More

Sometimes I find it really hard to process new thought and other times the process comes so fast it overwhelms me to the point of burdening my soul.  I am not allowing it to make me feel guilty,  I am allowing what I read to change my view.  There is no good in guilt and I believe that guilt is another lie fed to us by Satan, however, realizing that you have been misled to begin with and changing your thought process is a different thing all together.  It’s more conviction than guilt that I am feeling.

Today I have processed what I am reading.  Not reading more, just processing what I have read.  I’m finding that I had hate in my heart that shouldn’t have been there.  I am finding that I was filled with a sense of entitlement and that I wasn’t concerned that all these people serving other gods were going to die because of their belief.  I have been apathetic.  I have had the feelings that people on the street were there because they chose to be, or were too sick to be helped, or because…I am finding that I wasn’t trying to emulate Jesus at all, instead I was trying to work for my salvation.  You can’t work for your salvation, but the point I’m trying to make is that I was counting on what I was doing, to please God.  I was trying to live out the things that a denomination had fed me, tradition, I was all wrong.

I think the main idea that has hit me the hardest is the idea of the war, the biggest war, the start of every war since, began back in the Garden of Eden and it continues thru to today.  The war is a spiritual war and Satan is making us hate our fellow-man instead of wanting to help them see the light and the love that Jesus has to offer.  We have delineated the entire human race down to party lines, denominational parts, race, color, creed, sexual orientation.  We have stopped seeing each other as a creation of God, instead we see in each other all the things that our denominations and traditions have taught us to be good or bad and if there is any bad, the entire being is bad and we hate it.

Why would we want to live that way?  Isn’t that like living in darkness?  I don’t want to live in darkness.  I am ready for overwhelming love.

What Is Sin?

This morning I was watching one of my recordings of “The Walton’s”.  I record them each day to watch when I have down time and of course I have had a lot of down time as of late.  It was an interesting episode.  There was a missionary bringing a new preacher from the seminary.  He was being interviewed for a mission to Africa.  The Walton family had invited him to stay at their home.  His coming raised the question in John Boy’s mind about what is a sin.

This morning it made me contemplate more on what sin is.  I liked John Boy’s conclusion.  Sin is not only something that hurts others, it’s something that hurts us as well.  Sin is something that hurts God, it’s morally wrong.

There in lies the question.  Morality.  Everyone has their own morality.  Each culture makes up its own rules on what is moral and what isn’t.  Even within each culture we argue over morality.  Each man making up their own guidelines, no longer following what the word of God says.  No longer living by the code in God’s word, how can man decide what is moral when he no longer has God’s word guiding him?  The answer is that we cannot.  Without God we cannot walk down the path of what is right.

Sin comes between God and us.  The grace that Jesus afforded us on the cross bridges that gap and allows us to  fall at the feet of God, it allows for God to see us through the eyes of love that He has for His Son and not see the sin that separates us.

I thought it was grand when I opened my email to read the verse that is delivered each day.  It fit so perfectly with my wonderings.

And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

– Genesis 2:16-17

As the commentary stated, we have questions about why God ever put that tree in the Garden of Eden.  God doesn’t want us to come to Him out of fear.  He doesn’t want us to come to Him because we feel threatened.  He put that tree there because He wanted them to choose obedience, relationship, love.  That has not changed.  He wants us to choose a relationship with Him, He wants us to love Him more than we love ourselves or anything else.

John Walton told John Boy that sin for some people is like some people’s  love for rhubarb pie.  I love me some rhubarb pie.  John Boy and Jim Bob said that they hated it.  I guess that analogy works for me.  There are moments when I love myself more than I love God.  It hurts me, it hurts others, it hurts God.  That’s sin.  That’s me judging me, not judging you or anyone else.