grieving over our own sin

Some say we are human, therefore we sin. Not good since God created humans in his image as his Eikons (Greek word for image is transliterated, eikon). But as fallen humans, yes we do sin.

I know Christians who are sorry about their sins, but think that they can't help themselves. This is from an understandable, yet mistaken interpretation that we as Christians have two natures which are in a perpetual tug of war. And that according to Romans 7, we're going to do the bad we don't want to do, and we won't do the good we want to do; a tragic misinterpretation of that passage, which refers to all humankind in Adam, including Israel, under the law apart from the Spirit and grace.

There is that tension in this life in Jesus between moving in the direction of being conformed to the image of Christ, and instead being conformed to the pattern of this world/age. The two are polar opposites, but are experienced by us in Jesus in this life.

James minces no words about worldliness. And he tells us to grieve, mourn and wail over our sins. Not to accept them, but to humble ourselves before God. To grieve over our sins. And that as we do, God will lift us up.

We can't change ourselves, but we can confess our sins, knowing God will be faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

This is what I want to do. Instead of excusing sin, I want to meet it head on through Jesus by the Spirit, and in spite of all my weakness. I want to see God change my heart and make it more and more conformed to his heart.

Do I excuse any sin? Do I just chalk it up to being a sinner- which we have to acknowledge we are, since we do sin in this life-? Is sin something one can accept without consequences?

Or do I grieve over my sin before God, confess it to him, and want to by God's Spirit, put it to death?

Not a pleasant post, but not all of the Bible is pleasant. But it leads to a pleasant and good end for us, and for the world, in Shalom, in the true life through Jesus, that is real and enduring.

What might you like to add to this?

coming home

"There's no place like home." Maybe a trite saying, but there's truth in it. It's good to get away, and that's part of most people's summers. But there's no place we're at home at quite like home! :)

We as people are likened in Scripture to sheep. We easily lose our way and go astray. But Jesus is the good Shepherd who brings his sheep through the gate (which Jesus is likened to), finding that lost sheep and bringing it home, into safe pasture. And Jesus keeps his sheep in his care.

We as humans are really only at home when we find that home where God is in the center through Jesus by the Spirit- and as human beings living on earth.

Are we coming home? Are we more and more at home with Jesus, and is he by the Spirit more and more at home in our hearts by faith? Are we finding all of this in the midst of our daily existence, even in this world where there is no escape from trouble?

The beginning of this now in Jesus, in anticipation of our future home when heaven and earth become one, is here for us now. Are we learning to live in it?

What would you like to share here?

"Climbing - justice" from L.L. Barkat

From Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places

Through a social issues reading club started by L.L., which met at her house, L.L. and some friends began to enter into some of the hurt and wrong of the world. This opened up not only the stories of those who have been wronged and neglected. But made them aware of their own sense of responsibility and inadequacy in doing much about it. But this is where the climbing comes in. Quoting Karangathe, "a worker in Kenya's green belt movement", the endeavor to see justice done on earth is taken one step at a time. The destination may be far, and may even seem inaccessible, but steps in the right direction, beginning with what one can do themselves, are taken.

One of the keys is to see how we ourselves are culprits or accomplices in the plight of those suffering injustice in the world. This is not an easy road to travel. But following in the path of Jesus, "the awaited tsaddiq...a straight-on justice incarnate person," through receiving "his tsedaqah when we turn to [God] and are saved" we are thus "little Christs, little tsaddiqim, little straight-on justice incarnates..." We must get beyond any sense of hopelessness in view of the scope of the problems, and beyond our own imprisonment in pain as those being healed in Jesus if we're to bring the needed justice and freedom in Jesus to others.

Justice itself is not that hard to understand. It has the sense of righting all wrongs against others. In the biblical sense, bringing shalom, God's blessing of prosperity to those in need in our world. This is nothing less than what is prayed in the "our Father prayer": "your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So in that sense it is an endeavor we must take on not just by ourselves, who neither have the vision nor the strength for it. But together, in hand with God through Christ, so that it is helping others not only to bread, but the Bread of life, Jesus himself.

Again, just like chapter after chapter, really the entire book, this was more than just a fine read for me. It really plumbed my own shallowness on this subject, and challenged me. I have to admit, I've been confused over the past many months not so much over the meaning of justice itself, but how we apply it in the world. It seems like the common answer that the really rich are contributing to the injustice of the world in systemic ways has some truth and error. So at this point justice is a bit muzzled in me over such issues. I have plenty to learn.

But we see injustice, such as through a couple we know, the wife not even yet fifty having had two silent and one normal heart attack, her husband let go from a job because he had hurt his back- even though he was still working, now in alot of back pain and working a minimum wage job at a gas station along with delivering papers, having the big expense in gasoline. And he has had to pay around $100 per week for health insurance which ended up covering only one of four required medications for his wife. So he dropped the insurance, thinking he can do better paying for her medical needs out of his own pocket. And he gets only a few hours of sleep here and there. There are no easy answers here, and what can we do as Christians in this? To our shame, we don't seem well versed in knowing what we can or should do. And the church has helped this couple. Add to that, the rising health care cost, and needed insurance is a national issue. It would be nice if private enterprises worked together to help the some 50 million Americans to be able to purchase affordable health care coverage, which now they don't have, and doesn't seem forthcoming. This is one major item on my mind right now in regard to justice, and weighs heavily in my thinking on the upcoming November election.

And we must not only prophetically critique and speak into the wrongs of our world, but we must be part of the solution in Jesus. We must begin the steps towards God's shalom by becoming informed and praying for the problems both as to God's solution, and our part in that. Not that we'll arrive to shalom in perfection before Jesus returns. But I believe in Jesus we're called to show the compassion of God to those in need.

Let's follow the true Jesus, who was not the meek and mild "just is" as commonly portrayed, but the straight-on justice incarnate person, who in passion and compassion acted for others. This chapter was a needed spur to make me think and pray again that I would be a part of God's work of justice in Jesus in a world so in need of God's healing and shalom.

How do you see this and the part we're to play in it?

1. Stepping Stones - conversion
2. Christmas Coal - shame
3. Tossed Treasures - messiness
4. Heron Road - suffering
5. Sword in the Stone - resistance
6. Howe's Cave - baptism
7. Palisade Cliffs - doubt
8. Holding Pfaltzgraff - inclusion
9. Indiana Jones - fear
10. Old Stone Church - love
11. Goldworthy's Wall - sacrifice
12. Clefts of the Rock - responsibility
13. Olive Press - gratitude
14. Forest Star - humility
15. Seedstone - healing
16. Sugar Face - forgiveness
17. Lava Rock - witness

Next week: Roxaboxen - heaven

changing my views

I think one constant we Christians should be open to, aside from the essential of our commitment to the faith, is openness to change. Around seven years ago my theology was dramatically impacted through reading N.T. Wright. And due to my Anabaptist background along with discovering that Scot McKnight had a blog, I gravitated back towards my roots.

Around a year or so ago, it seemed like I became a bit stale in my theological endeavor. But recently I've become reawakened to a rethinking of my theological positions.

Theology in a sense, I think, is a second order exercise. One of great importance, in that we are trying to take the truth of Scripture into our world view and let it impact how we're to live. But first order exercise is to be before God in the reading of Scripture, prayer, community in Jesus, good works, and mission in Jesus to the world. I see these as practices we're to be engaged in. The theology comes for all of us. It's simply an expression of what we believe, in words and works. Trying to make sense of it all but seeking to do so with reference to tradition (what the church has taught), reason and experience. None of those are infallible, though they all factor in to our reading of Scripture. After all, Scripture is a human book, though essentially even in that humanness, it is the word of God and therefore infallible, our one infallible source. But necessarily we must engage it through tradition, reason, and experience.

Now, what am I changing? That's the frustrating part, because I'm not all the way where I seem to be going, yet. But I'm headed towards nuancing our existence in the sense that while we're not of the world, we pray that God's kingdom come, his will would be done, on earth as it is in heaven. And that culture, while having plenty of the godless world system in it, is not intrinsically evil (even true of politics, mind you!). Culture also reflects the image of God. God's goal in Christ is shalom, and it's an earthly, material shalom. Yes, we look for a heavenly country, but the end result seems to be the wedding of heaven in the New Jerusalem, and earth together, in the new creation when it's completed in Jesus.

Here are posts worth reading on this, by Michael Kruse, an incessant and excellent blogger, whose steady work over the months is finally getting through to me in some key ways. Not that I understand or follow it all, but there is some really good stuff here to think on in the light of Scripture.

Again, I consider of utmost importance our first order tasks, though the second order stuff should follow.

What might you like to add here? Have you ever felt half-baked, or even up in arms as to what you believe on some issues? Me too.

quote for the week

The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight - a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, a state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Savior opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be....

In biblical thinking, we can understand neither shalom nor sin apart from reference to God. Sin is a religious concept, not just a moral one. For example, when we are thinking religiously, we view a shopkeeper's defrauding of a customer not merely as an instance of lawlessness but also of faithlessness, and we think of the fraud as faithless not only to the customer but also to God. Criminal and moral misadventures qualify as sin because they offend and betray God. Sin is not only the breaking of law but also the breaking of covenant with one's savior. Sin is the smearing of a relationship, the grieving of one's divine parent and benefactor, a betrayal of the partner to whom one is joined by a holy bond.

Hence in the most famous of the penitential psalms, traditionally ascribed to David after his adultery with Bathsheba, the author views his sin primarily, perhaps exclusively, as a sin against God....

All sin has first and finally a Godward force. Let us say that a sin is any act - any thought, desire, emotion, word, or deed - or its particular absence, that displeases God and deserves blame. Let us add that the disposition to commit sins also displeases God and deserves blame, and let us therefore use the word sin to refer to such instances of both act and disposition. Sin is a culpable and personal affront to a personal God.

But once we possess the concept of shalom, we are in position to enlarge and specify this understanding of sin. God is, after all, not arbitrarily offended. God hates sin not just because it violates his law but, more substantively, because it violates shalom, because it breaks the peace, because it interferes with the way things are supposed to be. (Indeed, that is why God has laws against a good deal of sin.) God is for shalom and therefore against sin....In short, sin is culpable shalom-breaking.

Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. (pages 10, 12-14)