Thank you for the hundreds of e-mails and texts supporting this and for sharing your heart with me!!! Here is my prayer today that came from meditating on the Bible!
Monday, February 20th, 2012
Our Sin…
Last night I sat in a room full of people talking about selfishness and sin! They were saying things I’ve thought and said for years “My selfishness” “my sin…” then something occured to me. That Sin is not my problem. Sin is OUR problem. It’s not just some ‘condition’ personal to me. I wasn’t thinking this in some attempt to shirk personal responsibility either. But I finally had a deep experience of what ‘sin nature’ means. Sin is a human inheritance – it belongs to me from the moment I’m born – as much as death does. Imagine, thinking of death as something personal only to me!! As if by some mistakes I made in my life I brought on the possibility of death on myself! Absurd! But thinking about sin as some personal condition is as absurd. It’s arrogance. It’s at the heart of selfishness. And it gives you hope that you can actually do something about it yourself!
But Sin is as Final and Unavoidable as death is in the human condition. We inherited it from our ancient father – Adam. That is at the heart of the drama of the Gospel. We are fallen. Period. Think about it! No amount of good works/Bible study/charity/doing the right thing can eradicate death from our lives. Death cannot be overcome by anything we could do about it ourselves! Ever! And so many people have just settled into this idea that it’s just a ‘part of life’ it’s just part of the cycle of life.
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t a part of the original story. Death is not God’s creation. It isn’t a part of who He is. And that’s why I want to try and show you how linked sin and death truely are. This is what the Bible means when it says that Death is the result of Sin. Sin – the original kind that separated us from God, and the result of being separated from God who IS LIFE – is Death. That is our inheritance.
How do you overcome that? What seminar can you take to overcome death? What pastor have you met who has defeated death for us? What moral code do you know that has allowed one single human being in the History of humanity to avoid death? None I bet. It’s so big, and so bad, and it’s been so long – that we don’t even remember the time when death was not a part of the equation. So – how do you overcome something that doesn’t even occur to you could be overcome? You’ve just accepted that decay and disease, and sin and death is a ‘part of life’ it just is.
Or maybe you think that sin and death aren’t even linked. Maybe you don’t even believe in ‘sin’ at all. In that case – you are still dead in your sin. You don’t even know it. You are walking around dead – but don’t even know it. I was like that. Nothing on this planet could make me see that I was dead. Nothing could and no one could have convinced me that it was Sin – real, true original garden of Eden variety sin that had caused my death. Until I heard about the LIFE that is Jesus. Hearing the gospel, reading it, and listening to it – through many years of rejecting it, twisting it, hating it, and denying it, but eventually really hearing it, did something to me. It opened my eyes to my death. Only in the contrast of Jesus’ LIFE could I finally see that I was dead. And then – could I be willing finally, for Him to put my sin to death. In a nut shell – that is baptism, putting to death your death!
I was then raised with Jesus Christ out of my death. Riding on His coat tails! He rose – so I could rise. He came to do what? Help us enjoy our temporary life in the short cycle of ‘life/decay/death’?? Have you just accepted that Death is a part of life?
But Jesus came into this world to give us LIFE. What does that mean? We have life don’t we? He didn’t come to give us the kind of life our moms did in the birthing room. He also didn’t come just to give us a more comfortable life on earth or more monopoly money to spend in this ‘lifetime’. He came to give us the uninterrupted Life that He IS and that He’s had since before the beginning of the beginning. The kind of life that created everything and everyone. The kind of Life that was intended before the fall – before the separation. He came to give up His Life so that we could have Life – the kind that doesn’t end when the body dies.
No one, no rabbi, no priest, no Buddha, no hindu guru, no prophet muhammed, no Ghandi, no Bill W. No one can avoid death! NO ONE DEFEATS DEATH. Except the ONE, who didn’t just ‘avoid’ it – He DIED and OVERCAME DEATH!
Jesus Christ – CAME into this world – came into the darkness – came into the fallen, corrupted, hopeless world – He is the only thing that has ever happened to this world that has anything to do with God!!! Everything from the beginning of time – all the prophets, creation, scripture, heroes, villians, they all have had one purpose – to point the way and prepare us for Jesus Christ – by the Holy Spirit -or to keep us away from Him. We – humankind are the battleground. He is the only connection to God. He divinely and in a way that we could never divide or catalogue – became FULLY human – while remaining FULLY God. He bridged it! He is the only ONE who defeated death – our inheritance – and his Life became our brand new inheritance! Just as when someone dies – family members inhereit what’s in their will and testament! Well Jesus Christ also has a Will and Testament! Eternal life with the Father – he will transorm our bodies and we will be like him – in Heaven – with God – Forever and Ever and Ever and Ever..world without end.
Without Him there is NO life. Because He Is The Life.
How can you know this for sure? Like I do? Ask Him. If you’re willing to pay the ultimate price he’ll answer you. What’s the ultimate price? The right to be wrong. You have the right to be wrong, he won’t interfer with that, but if you ask Him to give you the Truth – if you give up your right to be wrong – He will show you.
Dear God – thank you for showing me The Truth. What a surprise, to find out that the truth isn’t an idea, or a belief or a principle or a ‘perspective’. The Truth is a person. Jesus, who is alive and well. Thank you Jesus for calling me out of darkness, for choosing me to be your friend. Thanks for your love. I love you back Jesus. Amen
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Recovered In Christ 