March 29, 2007

• Sorrow and Sin

  January 14^th, 2007

  Day 6

   

  Since God gave me everything, all I truly could ever want is mine already. Grace isn’t so much a gift, then, but is more the gift of realizing what has already been given. Grace is like the wind that gently blows the dirt off of the gift that has been there all along. I used to think that grace was “God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense,” but now I see it rather as “God’s Revelation At Christ’s Expense.”

   

   

  The grace I asked for was to feel profound sorrow, to feel the full weight of my sin. I thought for most of the hour that I was doing something wrong because I was recalling some terrible sins and was feeling, at best, very guilty. I can recall some of the sorrow near the occasion of particular sins, but couldn’t feel it. I even tried imagining myself at a mock trial of my final judgment. Still, only very guilty.

  I slowly let go of my frustrations and a slow truth finally emerged near the end of my prayer hour-

              The Holy Spirit dwells within me. God, in Christ, with us in the Holy Spirit, is like Simon as I, a beaten, broken, exhausted sinner, carry the cross of my sins. I am not devastated or sinking because God, the mighty God of infinite strength, is bearing the brunt of my sin. Guilt, sorrow, weight is all experienced by me and sometimes in great amount, but never in amounts that would crush me as the full effect of all my many sins surely would. God is with me, not doing it all instead of me doing it, but lovingly doing it with me.

              God praises me with encouragement through His many gifts, especially His Son. God reveres me by putting Himself below me, bearing most of the weight of my sins, while also allowing me to help, acknowledging my own strength, too. God serves me by helping me carry my cross.

              I should respond to all this by praising God for His unmatched generosity, revering Him by carrying my share with humility and consciousness, and by allowing His gifts and encouragement to bear fruit, and serve Him by doing my very best to avoid sin, thereby making His VERY heavy load lighter.

              Now tell me, anyone: what god out there can compete with all this? None.

   

  Guilt is the pain of sin cutting upon the soul; memory is the scar.

   

  In Eden, all desires were and are fulfilled in God’s time, and a perfect unity with God allows a person to trust that and to live with patience in all wants and desires.

              Sin is the flawed effort of trying to create one’s own Eden by fulfilling a want or desire in one’s own time without regard or trust toward God to fulfill it for us, in His time.

  • 3:20 pm
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