November 2, 2012
One day when I’m really old and have more to say (or perhaps less to say!!) I think I’m going to write a book and call it “Diary of a recovered sociopath”. I’m not kidding! The more my eyes are opened to the insanity of this world and to the absolute depravity that I lived in, all my life – the more breathtaking and outrageous is God’s grace demonstrated in what he did for this world – for me, through Christ. Seeing myself as I was and truly am on my own power against Who God Really Is, is like watching a black ink spot against a white canvas – the starkness of the contrast was mind blowing.
My conscience was seared. Deadened. Totally submerged. Flat lined. Most people that I hear chatting about their desires and evil thoughts that they think make them so badass makes me laugh. I lived and moved and breathed depraved, horrific wickedness and did it all with a song in my heart! But God chose not to leave me there – and the things I came to despise and tried to “cure”, the nagging anxiety, sleepless nights and mounting dread – they were truly the only things in my life that had integrity.
God touched me. Restored my conscience and set me on a path of confession and restitution that ultimately did nothing but open my heart and mind to the truth: that in my “restored” state, in all my good works, and in the power of the communities of do-gooders that I became a part of – we were all just as depraved as the monster I used to be. Simply a febreezed corpse. Imagine having a dream that you are building an entire ship to cross the ocean – building it from scratch…pouring so much hard work into it – and when you wake up from that dream, you are angry because now, in reality, none of your hard work has made you any closer to crossing the ocean! But what stayed with me was the truth that there is an ocean to cross and I yearned to cross it.
I had mistaken my restored conscience for redemption.
Take all my good works and amends and peace and stillness and fruit – take it all – and it can never wash out the stain on God’s pure canvas. We are incapable of a truly good act of our own selves. Any good deeds we do (outside of Christ) is merely a “relative” good deed. A truly good deed is done for the glory of God. Many have wallowed in despair in this place, many have sought out more elaborate rituals of stain removal, many have simply stamped out their conscience – again.
But some, meant for all, accepted by few have done the only thing that captures God’s heart – they have sought Him with all their heart and strength. They have responded to the only one who can remove this stain, the only one who does not offer a way for redemption – but who offered Himself as The Way of Redemption. Jesus Christ.
“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fulness of God.”Ephesians 3:17
“He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.” (Revelation 3:5)
Recovered In Christ 