Sore Subject

The church, historically, has made many errors.  As a matter of fact, it is quite possible they have done as much harm as they have done good as far as influencing people to come to Christ.  One of the problems I see that the church has exacerbated is the subject of sin. 

One could spend days debating how God views sin and how the church views sin, this discourse is by no means an exhaustive study of the subject.

First I must say as Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:15  “ This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”  I do not have these opinions because I am without sin.  On the contrary, I have chosen poorly far too many times in my life that I know first hand the grace of our Lord but I also know the pain that is the result of bad choices.

It is my theory that the historical church made sin a diabolical, hideous and damning thing in order to scare people into making right choices.  From the inquisition days to Bible thumping preachers, church leaders have tried to intimidate people into walking the straight and narrow.  It was especially easy when the general population didn’t have access to scriptures.  It is a knee jerk reaction to try to scare others into performing as one would like them to perform.  

In some ways this works, though generally only for a short time.  It made most become quite proficient at just hiding where they stray from the straight and narrow; creating more problems with deception and lies.  There is truth in the need to make good choices but more truth in grace.

The biggest problem I see with this outlook is they don’t measure in God’s grace.  The fact that humans can never be good enough and walk straight enough to stand in front of God without the blood of Christ, should be the first thing taught.  The most important thing taught!  ONLY by God’s grace, through the blood of Christ, can ANY of us stand before God.   The Bible thumping does nothing but create fear, and/or make us into liars to pretend we are good enough to deserve the grace, no matter how many mission trips you go on, or how many times you give to the poor, or are poor, without grace, you are nothing.

Some modern congregations have gone the other way.  They see the fear and lies of the past and do not want to replicate that.  Admirably, except, they seem to imply with the cheap grace that is sometimes taught, that whatever we do is okay because Christ has already covered it with his blood.    The word sin isn’t mentioned for fear of offending someone because they want church to be a place where everyone should always be comfortable.   There is also truth in these teachings.  Grace DOES cover it all.  Thank you Jesus!  And Christ didn’t come to make us uncomfortable, he did, however, come to convict us.

I believe the whole truth lies somewhere in between these two extremes.  We need to understand that we NEED the grace that was provided for us at a terrible cost.  We need to humble ourselves enough to know we cannot do this alone.  Then because of our love for Christ (We love Him because He first loved us) we want to make good choices.  As we make the good choices we see that His way has a purpose, and is better, more joy, more peace and more adventure. 

In my life of almost half a century, the greatest thing I’ve experienced is being a parent.  Not only I have I experienced more joy, more love, more fear, more pain, more happiness, more sadness and so on, with the experience of parenting, but I’ve also learned far more about God’s love for us.  No one can love a person more than a parent loves their child, but God can and does.  WOW!  That is a big thought that only as we mature do we begin to comprehend.

Not only has parenting been the environment through which I’ve begun to learn what love truly is, but it has shown me how God must feel when we, His children, make choices that are less than the best for us.  As a parent, we are heartbroken, we try to intervene but usually the choices are made regardless.  Smart parents let their child feel the consequences of their bad choices.  Many parents struggle with this balance.  They are either too harsh with consequences, but more often than not, they make the consequences of bad choices go away.  Because, let’s face it, grounding a child is harder on a parent than it is the child.  Also, watching your child suffer the consequences breaks our hearts.  It takes a parent with guts of steel and a heart full of love to allow child to suffer at all.  Which is my theory of why many times children are not disciplined, parents are either too tired or weak to do it, or too angry to handle it with love, but that is another blog.

Imagine then, how our God feels when we make bad choices that He knows are not best for us; when we don’t love our neighbor, when we chose selfishly.  It breaks his heart that we chose in a self-destructive way.  It also breaks his heart as he must watch us suffer the consequences of our choices.  The most wonderful thing is, He doesn’t let us suffer alone and he took the final/ultimate consequence for us.  That is a perfect parent; a perfect God.

The beautiful thing is, God didn’t give us the Ten Commandments to shame us.  As a matter of fact when Jesus went one further and said to even think it is sin, he is showing us that our very nature falls short of Him.  As a matter of fact He tells us that we are His children, His treasure.    John Ortberg Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them says, “You now are invited to take your place in the eternal circle of self-giving love.”  I believe anytime we aren’t living like this, it is sin.  Sure there are the obvious sins that destroy this physical body, or others, but these things are just as big a barrier to keeping us from God as the obvious things. We fall short of His glory daily in ways we cannot articulate, but He doesn’t hold this against us.

Does this mean then we can live anyway we chose, God forbid.  Just has the sweet, fun relationship of parent and child is marred with a child’s bad choice so is our relationship marred with Him when we knowingly chose unwisely.  He is hurt, we don’t feel the openness of communication and joy and there are consequences on this earth we have to face.  For example, the Israelites didn’t have faith enough to go into their promised land, they whined and cried and didn’t want to follow God.  The consequence of their choice, that generation didn’t get to see the Promised Land, they spent the rest of their lives wandering in the desert.  They were still God’s chosen people, He still saved them from slavery, but they missed the blessing of seeing the promises of God being fulfilled.

We do this too with our choices.  A bad choice doesn’t mean we are no longer a child of God, or that He hasn’t covered our sins with His grace, but a bad choice has consequences on this earth.  This is the teaching that is missed sometimes.  What He wants from us is to want to be with Him, to want to have a close relationship with Him that isn’t hindered by choices.  That is also what I want for me.