Taking the Sin Test

Credit: ramblingrector.me

OK--Today we're taking a little test.
You should know this--
Who committed the first sin?
{Jeopardy theme: ta da da da ta da...}
OK--time's up.
Adam and Eve?
{Annoying buzzer} Nope. Wrong.

Here's the answer:
How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High. But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.--Isaiah 14:12-15
It was Lucifer, God's angel.
And what did Lucifer want? To make himself the Most High. He wanted to be God. Yikes.

That's awfully hard to imagine. I mean, he's an ANGEL, right? How bad can that be?
Evidently, not good enough. And, in a way, Lucifer got what he wanted--he got his very own kingdom to rule in hell and, temporarily at least, he also got to hold sway here on earth. He's became pretty powerful after all that. And all through sin.

Well, then, what about Adam and Eve? What's the deal there?
Well, think about it.  When Eve told the serpent that God had warned her and Adam from eating the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden because it would cause their death, good ol' Lucifer essentially said, "Hey! Look at me! I didn't listen to God and I didn't die!"
The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."…--Genesis 3:4-5
In essence, Lucifer gave Eve the same line that had been his own downfall. "Take a bite, girl. You can be God."

And we all know what happened next.

Why does this matter? Because it clarifies that we are still doing the same thing we've always done. Listening to that same whisper, succumbing to that same voice.
And it's still saying the same thing.

It's saying that what God is offering isn't good enough. 

And how does it start? The same way it always did.
It starts with discontent. 
"I don't want this, God, I want something else."
"Please change my circumstances, God."
"You must have made a mistake, God."

Now, God does not want robots. He doesn't want people who blindly accept what He's teaching us.
Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.--Acts 17:11
 And He doesn't expect us to roll merrily along when tragedy strikes or when misfortune comes our way:
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.--Matthew 5:4
 Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward them for what they have done.--Proverbs 19:7


But we must live with a fundamental understanding that God does what He does because He means well for us. 
He loves us. He intends good through our circumstances. No matter what happens or what our situation looks like.
We have to trust Him.
Lucifer didn't. Eve didn't. And you know what happened to them.
If we are to live the way He has mapped out for us--in communion on the road to holiness--we have to achieve a real, basic satisfaction with what we cannot change. When we approach life with discontent rather than gratitude, we end up right smack in Lucifer's lap.
And that low hiss begins to sound like a lullaby.

You Can't Change Anything From Inside the Limo

photo: veemoze.wordpress.com

Things change.
They do. Always. I can't do anything about that.
I don't always like it, though. Like when kids grow up and move away. Like when parents or friends or spouses die. Heck, I don't even like it when a favorite restaurant changes their menu or skirt lengths go short again.
But sometimes...sometimes I just know things HAVE to change. And, even worse, that I'm the one who's supposed to help change them.

I can't even imagine how Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela felt. Yikes. They changed BIG things. My convicted changes aren't that big--not even close. But they're big to me. And, like those famous men, I have to figure out how to implement them. Whether it's school reform, or property taxes, or how my church runs their Sunday school, change sometimes calls me to work, and I am going to need a plan.

My first big experience with this came in business. I worked for a company top-heavy in wealth and privilege. The men and women who worked in our factory worked hard--really hard--and got none of the perks I saw handed out liberally to managers and executives--bonuses, both cash and non-cash. It wasn't right, I thought from my entry level office desk. If I ever got the chance to change that...well, I would.

Eventually, I got the chance.

When I got promoted to Vice President, I had big plans. I would shine a new light into the executive offices. I would make the changes I'd always seen needed making. But then, on my next business trip, the company paid for a limo to pick me up at 5AM and take me to the airport. Instead of sending it away and driving myself, I settled deep into the leather seats and napped. And a few months later, when I realized that the bonus I got that year would pay for my younger son's college education, I didn't cash the check and distribute it to those hard working men and women on the shop floor like I'd planned to do. Instead, I deposited into our savings account.

Were these things evil? Not really. But they serve to demonstrate something I learned the hard way then and in the long years that followed. Even after I'd stopped joining the excess and started fighting it, the big boys didn't care that I didn't want to play with them. It didn't matter to them at all, as long as I didn't interfere with their fun. And I didn't interfere, but not because I didn't want to. I didn't stop them from their greed because I didn't have the clout to do it. They couldn't care less what I thought or did. To them, my example was not eye opening--it was, maybe, faintly amusing. Finally, I did the only thing I could decently do. I gave up and got out.

This is what I learned: real change does not generally come from the inside.  Not unless the changer is also in charge. Kings can exert change. Sometimes very disciplined presidents and CEO's can. But not the rest of us. If we want to change something, we have to step out of it first. I saw this in business, but I also saw it in the school where I later taught and in the church we attended. There, too, we tried to enact change from the inside and found that it couldn't be done.

God knows this, too.
Example: Right after Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem to waving palm branches and cries of 'Hosanna', what did He do? He marched right over to the temple and chased out the money changers for the second time.
It is written--My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!--Matthew 21:13
And what happened?
The scribes and the chief priests heard it and sought out how they might destroy him.--Mark 11:18

Jesus didn't become a temple honcho first. He came in almost incognito--a young guy from a small town, but with wisdom and a mission He thoroughly understood. He could see clearly from the outside, whether from heaven or from Nazareth or from the back of a donkey, the kind of corruption so rarely visible from inside.

Obviously, I am prejudiced by my own experience. The hierarchy surrounding my own situations chewed me up and spit me out. Just like Jesus. Well, almost.

And that's my takeaway from all this. The people Christ criticized destroyed Him, or tried to. When they were finished with him, He was certainly very dead. But the same as He did, I rose up from each of my experiences remade, better than I'd begun. And amazingly, in the process, some of the things that needed changing did change. Not directly from what I did, but they did change, and some are still changing.

Just like Jesus, I left each of these situations an outcast, but not untouched, unchanged. And I learned to trust that God will use my actions in His own way. I also now know not to trust reformers with a stake in the status quo, but only those who have nothing to lose by changing it.
They have the vision. They follow the right example.

The Way of Sacrifice

credit: www.soulshepherding.org

It's almost impossible to approach Easter without remembering that this is a season of sacrifice. And sacrifice is almost always harder than we think it will be. Our fasts leave us hungrier. Our good deeds leave us more tired. Our almsgiving digs deeper into our pockets than we expected. Sacrifice, we find, hurts.

But the degree of pain that a sacrifice inflicts is not a good measure of its efficacy. Our sacrifice can hurt plenty, but still have little worth in the eyes of God. 

I desire mercy, not sacrifice (Hosea 6:6), God tells us. In other words, sacrifice for its own sake or sacrifice with any other object or person in mind than God Himself is, in the end, futile, a chasing after wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

Our sacrifice cannot have any other object than to please God. Period.

That's what Jesus did.
I come to do the will of my Father.--John 6:38
It is a near-misnomer to say that Jesus came to save us. 
He did save us, but that was not His main aim. His aim was to obey His Father. His Father wanted us saved, so Jesus saved us. But, had His father wanted Him to do something else, He would have done the other thing.
Jesus was more obedient than He was sympathetic. And we are to follow His example.
If we don't, our sacrifices become dependent on their results.

Think about it. We naturally want our sacrifices to bear fruit. We want our children to respond to us when we do something special for them. We want the money we donate to be well spent. We want the unbeliever we befriended to come to follow Christ. We want the person we took in to amend their life.
But often, they don't. And we feel drained, betrayed, taken advantage of.
That's the clue.
If, when we have done something for someone and they have not responded in the way we hope for, making us angry or disappointed or discouraged, we have done it for the wrong reason.
It's true.

Remember Jesus. We often say that Jesus would have died for the sake of saving just one soul. That's true. but it's also true that He would have died for the salvation of no souls at all.
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.--Romans 5:8
He died equally for those who repent and those who do not. He died for us all. And whether one or a thousand or a million souls or none come to Him as a result, He was successful in what He set out to do.He did His Father's will and it was enough.

When our Lord healed one sick person and not another, He was responding to what His Father asked of Him. When He raised some from the dead and not others, He did the same. When the rich young ruler asked how to be saved, He let the man walk away. He showed Himself to the Samaritan woman, but did not chase after her.
Christ did not consider the feelings of those He loved above those of His Father. He called Peter 'Satan' when Peter opposed Him. He rebuked the apostles for retaliation at Gethsemane. No one, not even those He loved, prevented His obedience. That way, He always stayed in a state of grace. That's how He never sinned.

People often get  between us and our God. They don't mean to. And we, I'm convinced, don't mean to put them there. After all, God made them, just like He made us. Loving them is a privilege and one of the wonderful parts of this life.

But we can't confuse loving people with loving God. They are not the same thing. 
Everybody's problem will not be ours to solve. We are not to bind up all wounds. We are to sacrifice ourselves to Him and only to Him. He owns us, no one else. We cannot elevate anyone's need above God's.

Sometimes, God does send us as Samaritans to bind up the wounds of someone on the Jericho road, but not always. Sometimes, that man is for someone else or for God Himself. That's why Jesus tells so emphatically to seek God. We have got to learn the difference, or we will add burdens to our lives we were never meant to have.

Any cross we pick up in this life has to be a cross God has given us. 
The cross anyone else gives us will be too heavy to carry.

Hi there--I'm a Sinner

photo: churchmarketingonline.com

Sackcloth and ashes. That's how the ancients did it.
When they were convicted of their sin, they tore their clothes, put on hard, scratchy garments,  poured ashes on themselves, then sat in a public place so everyone could see. We don't do that.

So, what can we do? After all, making a public declaration of sin cements our understanding of our situation before God in a way no private confession would ever do. So what, in the context of our own culture, could we do?

How about this:
As a rule, we're really good at introducing ourselves to people. What about if, the next time we shook hands with someone in greeting, we just said, "Hi, I'm JoAnne, and I'm a sinner."?

They do it at AA meetings all the time, don't they? It's part of their renewal, their repentance, if you will. They declare that they are alcoholics and so, begin their journey back from that pit. It should work for us, too, shouldn't it?

Say we did that.
What would a statement like that say, to ourselves and the people we meet?

First, God is real, and He has authority over my life, authority above both my own reluctance to admit it and any human's opinion of me.
If we say we have not sin, we deceive ourselves--1John 1:8
Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight...Psalm 51:4


Second, this same God created me because He loves me. If God is real, and instituted the conditions under which we are to live with Him--the same ones I have broken--He did so because they are a natural outflow of Himself. Whatever God commands me to be, He already is.
Be ye holy because I am holy.--Leviticus 20:7

Third, I am not perfectly holy, but God can save me. If I admit freely my sin, and acknowledge a God both all-powerful and loving, He has to have made a way for me. He is not content to leave me in the desolation to which admission of sin inevitably leads.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.--1John 1:9

In the end, there is no gospel without sin. We wouldn't need it. God, already full and glorious in our sight, would be good news enough. As it is, though, things didn't work out like that. And what we live, or have the opportunity to live, is not Plan B. God only makes and keeps Plan A. He gets to do that, you know. Perfectly, like He does everything else.

He made us, and when He did, He knew we weren't God, like Himself. We never could be. Sin, and all its anguish, has to be part of God's plan. It's how we know His holiness, how we know how much all this cost Him, how much He loves us. We know instinctively that we cannot understand good in the absence of evil, happiness without unhappiness. Well, then, how could we know everything we know about God without seeing even a glimpse of life without Him? I don't think I could.

So, yes. I'm a sinner. And while I'm not proud of it, I understand the role my sin plays in God's plan. I need it. I need its anguish, its shame, its desolation. Then I know how much I need my God.

Hi. I'm JoAnne.....and I'm a sinner.

Still Rationalizing After All These Years

photo: www.imnotthatdrunk.com

I've finally figured out why I still sin.
I like it.

OK, some sins do revolt me but when I think about it, the sins I find disgusting are usually someone else's. When I take the unwelcome trouble of comparing my own thoughts, words, and actions against the two great measures God gave us--The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes--the list of instances where I fall short is long. And when I take a good look at the list, most of the time I really wasn't aware that I was sinning at the time.

When I got mad, I thought my anger justified.
When I judged, I thought my judgement fair.
When I exaggerated, I thought it harmless.
When I bragged, I thought the self-praise well earned.
When I withheld help, I thought my caution prudent.
I didn't think my sin was sin. I thought I was being smart, careful, even discerning. 
I forgot that the life Christ requires is a life of abandon to Him, unmeasured love for Him, and humility before Him that takes no notice of me at all.

That's the problem. I keep remembering me, elevating me, comforting me.
I'm not supposed to do that. That's God's job--His promise, even. I am to remember and glorify God.

However, I usually want to take care of myself first. That's why I sin. I am not listening to God's perfect advice:
Love your neighbor as yourself.--Matthew 22:39
I will never hate myself. Not really. I will never forget myself. Not really. Well, I'm not supposed to do that to anyone else, either. But I do.

I hear a lot of religious-sounding flap about loving the sinner and hating the sin. Oh really? Am I prepared to do that toward myself? Is anyone?
I don't hate my sins. I excuse them, rationalize them, protect them. 
I have to be at least as ruthless with myself as I am with someone else.

Why do you worry about a speck of sawdust in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?--Matthew 7:3
It's a wonder I can see at all. I must see and know God's genuine offense at what I have done. And it won't be pretty.

In order survive this look, however, I must first have a deep understanding that God loves me--that in His eyes, I am precious and renewed in His love day by day--and that He accomplishes this renewing as the Creator who made me with His own hands with full intent.  However, His love does not include prurient license. He, in His mercy, is perfecting me and in doing so, will not let me wallow in whatever pigpen I've chosen for myself.

Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.--Psalm 51:7

But in order to become clean, I must first admit that I am currently filthy. I must see my pigpen. And that part, if I am honest, is quite easy.

My Real True Love

photo: inbetweendays.me

This is the irony of age--that I have spent  a whole lifetime caring for and satisfying a body that slowly falls apart. 
And I can't do a thing about it.

Let's face it.
I love myself. More than I love anyone else and more than anyone loves me.
I am my own best friend.
But my affection is misplaced. I am also my own betrayer.

My hands hold tight to what does not last.
The man who loves his life will lose it...--John 12:25
My head trusts my own reason above all others.
For the wisdom of the world is foolishness in God's sight.--1Corinthians 3:19
My heart leads me to destruction.
The heart is deceitful above all things.--Jeremiah 17:9

So what do I do with this body, this life--or what is left of it?
How do I focus on what does not crumble to dust?
How do I live in blood and bone and skin, emotion and thought, but disdain its rule over me?

There is only one way I know--
I must live not to find satisfaction in indulgence, but joy in denial.
I cannot become like Christ and, at the same time, pamper my flesh. I have to go past it, through it.
This is life's purpose, its real journey.
If I can do this, then I will still die, but I will not die with my body. I will live with my Lord.

Broken by Myself

photo: www.ido-doi.com

I know that Christ died for me, but I don't believe it. Not really.

If Christ had to do that--die--really die--to fix me, then there must be something drastically wrong with who I am.
And He died, all right. I believe that. But because of me? Really?

The Bible, after all, says that I am made in the image of God, right? How messed up, then, can I be?
Enough, apparently.

This is hard to understand. But until I do understand, really understand, this miserable necessity of Christ having to die because I am so broken, I can't understand anything else--not about God, not about me. So long as I hold onto even the smallest inkling that I might be OK just as I am, I cannot know God.

I don't like this idea. Not even a little.

I am good, and patient, and kind and all the rest. Most of the time. I am. I sometimes even look in the mirror and think, 'Hey, you're OK, girl.' But inevitably, just about then, I crash and burn. Anger, deception, and selfishness crowd out all the good stuff. Again.

And I see Him there--Jesus--hanging, bleeding, dying--saying nothing, saying everything.

Is He accusing me? No. But neither does he shrink from the truth like I do. He wears the truth.  He carries it, lays down on it, and dies on it.

I am not OK. Not alone. Not without Him. Not ever.

He bore the punishment that makes us whole.--Isaiah 53:5
You were bought with a price--1 Corinthians 6:20

What to do Today

pic: www.ingodsimage.com

Moses messed up at Zin.
The Israelites were thirsty and complaining AGAIN, and God told him to speak to the rock to make it produce water, something Moses had done before under God's instruction.
But this time, Moses had enough of the Israelites' griping:
...and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff.--Numbers 20:10-11

Pic credit: www.trekkersbiblestudy.org

You have to feel for the guy. The Israelites were ungrateful, unfaithful, and blasphemous. We would have gotten mad, too. So he hit the rock instead of yelling at it. Big deal.
But you and I have never seen God.
Not face to face like Moses did.
He, more than every other living man, should have known what God wanted.
He wanted Moses to believe Him.
And He wanted him to do it right then, without hesitation.

That's why God excluded Moses from His rest, his promised land.  
In that critical moment, Moses didn't believe.
Moses' fleeting unbelief denied him rest, and it can do the same for us. But God gives us hope:
It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them and did not go in because of their disobedience. 

God links our hope for heaven to something we have to do and He give us a time to do it:
Therefore, God set a certain day, calling it Today...Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.--Hebrews 3:6-7

We are to believe Today.
Today is the day we hear His voice.
Today is the day we believe.
Today is the day we enter into the rest of knowing God.

Do you remember a time when God showed you the heaven to come by giving you something of Himself today?

Sin: Am I Done Yet?

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Repentance is a single act.
In that He died, He died unto sin once...--Romans 8:35

A single act, but one that for you and me may not, probably will not, be accomplished all at once.
Repentance is deep, and needs to finish all the way down to its dark, disgusting bottom. 
It is not just "I'm sorry" nor "I'm really sorry" nor "I'm (sniff) so very sorry." Repentance isn't even just "I won't ever do that again."
True repentance rips and racks down to a center that never wants to see the light of day.
It resists exposure to the point that we need to tear it out. 
In short, if one has not been miserable over sin, one has not truly repented.

Repentance requires that we plumb down to the full depths of our own depravity.
Guilt and shame are long and wide and they need to be. It is so for every sin, because the commission of any sin means that we have chosen the way of idolatry. We have chosen to worship other gods. That is the nature, the definition, of sin.
It is not a mistake or misstep. It is betrayal. And it needs to die.

That's the bad news. And it is very bad, indeed.
But there is also Good News, because once we have come to the end of it, once we have reached fully down, pulled out absolutely all of the disease, we can welcome the cure. 
Once I am done, God receives me into His presence, and His reception is complete and eternal. I am clean. He has made a way for me and holds my place.

In that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He lives, He lives unto God. So reckon yourselves also dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ.--Romans 6:9-11

God does nothing halfway and neither can I.
I cannot become fully alive until I have rendered my sin fully dead. 
Repentance. 
The gateway to death.
The path of life.

Ninja Kittens: I Should Have Known the Danger

Photo credit: motohell.com

Everything sweet in this world has a hard edge that also wounds.
Like a cuddly kitten that suddenly strikes with a sharp sword, warm days turn bitterly cold or dangerously stormy. Dreadful error shadows good intentions. Lovers and friends fail. Years melt a debutante into a crone.  Every flower eventually develops a curling edge of brown that precurses deterioration. Those close to our heart die.
I can't help but wonder why life is said to be a gift when it harbors so many bitter disappointments and hurts. 

And then I remember God.
You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound.--Psalm 4:7

God brings joy; life does not.
Life is the vehicle God made so that I could know the joy of loving Him who is perfection itself.
He gives me love so that I can return it.
He inspires hope so that I can survive life's inevitable wounds.

Whatever destruction people and circumstances bring, my God never changes.
No human being can make a promise they will keep. Knights in shining armor all eventually succumb to their own weaknesses. In the end, none of us can love one another through our worst moments. We will all shrink and retreat. The kitten will not only scratch...it will cut, and deeply.

But God stands firm. He knows I am dust and loves me still because I am the work of His own hands.
God alone brings me the joy of a new day, as long as I can recognize that joy as His and His alone.
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.--Psalm 90:14

The Howling Dark of Sin and Chris Tomlin's Pale Grace

Got grace?
Well, of course I do, silly.
I am set free by it, washed in the blood of the lamb. I am saved, Saved, SAVED!
And grace is amazing.
John Newton says so.
Chris Tomlin says so.

But John knew something Chris appears to want to forget.
Grace needs sin.
Always.
Always.
The crime. The betrayal.
The howl of deep hurt forcing itself to be heard from torn heart of the person, and of the God, I said I loved, said I would never forsake.
And then did.
And I have to listen to it.
Ragged. Raw. Unrelenting.
And I am responsible. Only me.
I did it on purpose, because I wanted to, because I thought myself more important.

That is why I need grace.

Amazing Grace is not a hymn. John Newton did not sing it.
He wrote and recited it with his congregation as a statement of wretchedness.
The grace he described covered the sin because it could not make it disappear.

The minute we forget the sin, we can forget the grace, too.
We do not need it any more.

If we want to sing about grace, we'd do well to remember the sin that made it necessary.

Look into the horror.
You will need to be bold, but it's worth it, because that is the only place you will find real grace.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find help in time of need.-Hebrews 4:16

The Fool Who Follows Him...

Take a close look. I thought this was clever at first. The Last Supper, but rather than Christ and His disciples, well-known scientists-- Galileo Galilei, Marie Curie, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Isaac Newton, Louis Pasteur, Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Thomas Edison, Aristotle, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins and Charles Darwin.

Harmless.  Even funny. But then I saw.

Not the heresy of it, although there is that component.  
It's the danger of it. Not because it's a joke, but because it isn't.

My former amusement dies to a choke, a strangle. I can't laugh at this because I live with it every day, as does every single smart person God made.
Suddenly, I get scared. Really scared.

This is the problem:
Smart people get used to being right.
They do. 
They get used to it because they often are, or sound like it. They know the right arguments, the pertinent facts, the scientific proofs. Most of them don't mean to lie or to deceive. Smart people are sincerely trying to help others understand. They are teachers, doctors, researchers, philosophers, scientists....and pastors. They are the best of us, aren't they? We go to them when we want to learn, want to improve, want to get well. 

But they have a problem. Us.
Because we believe smart people so completely, we have given them permission to believe themselves. 
We have given them license to ignore their own capacity for self-deception.
We ignore, and let thus let them ignore, their own humanity.

Oh sure, we all say no one is perfect, that we're all only human, and screw up, but then don't universally apply what we acknowledge to be universal frailty.
We permit some people to be more perfect than others.
We permit some people to be like God.

And that is what this picture is really about. 

Look again. 
Each of these men and women used their intelligence to figure out something important, and I am grateful for that. 
But some one of them also believed, and seemed to have convinced some of us, that their ability to figure stuff out makes them so special as to discount their own vast capacity for being wrong.
And this makes the smartest of us also the most dangerous. 
Listen to them, but don't trust them.

It is easy to deceive a really smart person when the deception involves their own perfection. 
They will believe in their own rightness almost every time.
After all, they're smart, aren't they?

The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception.--Proverbs 14:8

Do Not Forget

God does not forgive, much less forget.
At least not in the way we most often think about it.
Just saying.

He never makes our sins just go 'poof!' and disappear. 
He does, however, move them.
I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist.--Isaiah 44:22
...as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.--Psalm 103:12
But He does not make sin disappear until somebody dies.

When we know we are guilty, He does not forgive.
When we repent, He does not forgive.
Only after somebody dies does God forgive and, for us, God wants that person to be Jesus.

When we repent and believe, our sins are moved to Jesus' back, and He died for them, all of them. 
If we don't repent and believe, we are stuck with our own sins, forever, all the way into eternity, where we must do the dying for them.

Imagine that, every time we lie, a soldier drives another nail through Jesus' hand into the cross.
Every time we cheat or betray or love the world,--another nail, and another and another.
Don't kid yourself.
If you expect forgiveness, this must happen. It must. Either that, or you hang on to your sins right into hell.
The only way out is to stop sinning, which we should probably give serious consideration.
But forgetting may not be such a good idea.

Don't You Dare Kiss Me

The Bible tells us to be gentle.  It tells is to be patient, too, and to forbear with one another.
"I can do that," I think.
When someone cuts in line at the grocery, I can keep my mouth shut.
When I'm picking up socks for the fifth day in a row, I can almost smile.
When I get passed up for a promotion, I can try harder next time.
I'm doing pretty good.
Ha.

How about if the person in the grocery cuts off my arm instead of cutting in line?
What if I must pick up a sword rather than socks?
Or if I get chosen for the gas chamber rather than passed up for promotion?
It gets a little harder, doesn't it?
But Jesus did it, and He did it for Judas, who He knew would sell Him out.

Just before Judas walked out of the upper room to collect his thirty pieces of silver, what did Jesus do?
He prayed for him, he took off his robe, knelt before him to wash his dirty, smelly, betraying feet, and then Jesus fed Judas' conniving body with His own body and blood, the bread of life and the cup of salvation.
He forbore with Judas' outright evil  not only without complaint, but without apparently even noticing. 
And me?
I bristle with annoyance at the hint of a perceived wrong.
I know offense at the smallest slight.

A person who needs a bath needs only wash his feet; his whole body is clean.  And you are not clean, though not every one of you.  You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.--John 13:10, 7

Later you will understand.  Later--like now.
Thank you, Jesus, for training me with socks and checkout lines.
And please, please forgive my sad selfishness.