Skip to main content

One of Them

             For the director of music. For Jeduthun. A psalm of David.

Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. (Psalm 62:1)

 

          Suppose that you were to walk into your kitchen at some point and discover one of them there. For you, it might be a cockroach, spider, mouse, fruit fly – whatever it is, it’s there, and if there’s one, there are probably more. I’m sure there have been sitcom episodes about the lengths one will go to get rid of some pest. Whatever it is, it must be destroyed. 

        

              And even once it has been, we peer around corners or turn lights on suddenly, sure we’re going to find at least one more of them that we missed. Eventually, we get over it and treat our kitchen as we always have.

          Sometimes, it seems as though we think we should have the same response to a sin in our lives. And as with invading critters, if there’s one, there are likely more. On finding one, we are tempted to scream and run, but if we don’t destroy it right away, it will multiply. For a time at least, our lives become an ongoing hunt for the sins that infest us. It’s a natural response, but the result is that we see it as our responsibility to overcome the sin, and our focus becomes the sin and the sinner rather than God.

          There is no suggestion here that we should shrug our shoulders about sin in our lives. Instead, there is the question of whether what Dallas Willard calls “sin management” is the goal. If our salvation comes from the Lord, then should our response to sin be “Sorry, God, I’ll go to war against it and myself”? Or, should our response be, “Eek! Father, a sin! Help! Save me!”

          The cry for help doesn’t free us from doing what God directs us to do about the sin. It just shifts the focus from the sin and from ourselves as the hero of the story to God.

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more