Prone to Sin

I suck at this whole do not sin thing. I really suck. I wish I did not. But I do. I really really do. Sin is fun and anyone who says different is lying. Some weeks it is easy because I am so sick of sinning that I have no want. You can only lick up your own barf so many times before it stops tasting good. But after taking a break, eating good stuff the barf starts looking appealing again because I forget how sick it makes me and then it's back to eating it. 

It starts with just a glance back. Then a sniff. Maybe a lick. "Oh this is good, kinda like pizza with Chinese in it." All the way until I am full on devouring it. And this continues until I am sick again. A vicious circle to say the least. 

So what happens that causes me to turn back, to forget? I think a lack of strength. I am always trying to change, to turn away from sin on my own accord. Never asking help from the One that bought my freedom. Why? I do not know. No, literally I do not know how. I have spent most of my life half-assking for help, but once sin starts looking good again I drop Jesus like a gay guy drops the soap. Sin is fun. I hate it, but it feels really good (for a moment) and is really fun. Paul's anguish at the end of Romans 7 echos that of the wrestling of my own heart.

^"18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. ¹⁹ I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. ²⁰ But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. ²¹ I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. ²² I love God’s law with all my heart. ²³ But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me."

 

So how am I going to get out of this? I still am unsure how, but I know it has to start with Jesus. He is the only way out. Paul says in the next chapter as much

  

^"3-4God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that."

 

I want to remember this. To own it. To believe wholeheartedly that I no longer need to fight against something that has already died. I want to figure out how to apply this. How to ask for help and trust that that will be enough.

 

Lord, thank you for your grace. Teach me it. I pray that I am constrained by it to a life wholly and deeply Yours. Here's to the good fight. May you grant my the ability to trust your strength. Set me right.  Again help me, for even while I write this I want nothing more to run off and do that which I hate.

A Man Named Jesus

So I have been reading this book called The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg. I hate it. Every time I pick it up I read something that I argue with for hours only to come to the conclusion that he is right. Right now I am in a chapter solely on Jesus. One of his main points for the chapter is the humanness of Jesus, which after arguing with myself over the way he said it I have decided is right. He believes that this side of Jesus is almost completely forgotten by many as of late. One of the points that he made that hit me was such, "We do not think that Jesus thought that the purpose of his life, his vocation, was his death. His purpose was what he was doing as a healer, wisdom teacher, social prophet, and movement initiator. His death was the consequence of what he was doing, but not the purpose." How often are we taught the opposite? That Jesus came to die for us and now we can go to heaven. Okay that's great and true, but we are missing something. We are focusing on the, and to use another thought from Borg, post-Easter Jesus. God the Son raised from the dead. But there is a whole big chunk we forget that Jesus was human.

Jesus came to this world to show us how God would look like in human form. God would love, heal, and teach others how to do the same. Honestly if we could fully get things right, follow Jesus's way, there would be no need for death. 

I love this thought because it affirms the need to make Christianity a way not just a set of beliefs. Who gives a crap about whether you believe Jesus died, if you do not turn it into an action. When you no longer care about getting to heaven you start worrying about how to make this world a better place.

I am sorry for the lack of clear purpose to this blog, it is late and my mind keeps jumping tracks. I guess what I wanted to say is that I forget that Jesus was human. He did not want to die. He die because He lived a life as God meant life to be, and was killed for such. And because He lived a holy life we can also. Who cares what happens after death, I want to be known for a holy full life here and now. I want to be known for my love of others, my caring for the sick, my helping the widows.

P.S, please critique this

The girl without a name

Do you ever have those times when you hear, see, or learn of something and instantly you feel splagchnizomai? Splagchnizomai is the Greek word for compassion. It means to ache from your bowels with compassion, love, and pity. To break down and cry because of the pain you feel for someone. Jesus is often caught with this feeling after seeing the broken, the sick, the weary.

Me? I feel it sometimes unfortunately for me I remember all of the times I have felt like this. The reason I say unfortunately is because the reason I remember is because it only rarely happens. Often I am to caught up in my cynical ways to open my heart to what God is doing.

But I felt it tonight.

It beautiful feeling. Not enjoyable, but beautiful. It's a painful, angry, sad feeling. The only thing that feels right is to cry. It sucks, but it is so beautiful because in that moment I know how God feels toward humans, towards me. It's a moment of understandings just how much "God so loved the world".

I do not know her name, but she was around 5 I reckon, in kindergarden is all I know. She was precious. It was pajama day at school, so she wore her pink pajamas proudly in the mall. She had beautiful black hair in two braid down pass her shoulders. And rosy red cheeks, as if jack frost had given them a kiss. She came in my store with her grandma, great grandma, and a cousin who was dressed in pink also. She and her cousin bounced around the store while her grandmas shopped. I don't know how it came up, but somehow the topic of how her dad had run off with another women leaving her mom with her and a unborn baby.

"Shit-head", "I could be that guy", "That girl is worth way too much to be fatherless". All these thoughts filled my mind. Splagchnizomai filled my gut. It hurt. I just wanted to give her a hug and tell her she was loved, then beat her father into his senses for hurting such a precious thing.

Whenever Jesus felt compassion it was followed by an act: Healing the broken; feeding the hungry; cleaned the dirty. I could only pray. Pray that God reveal himself to her, protect her, and keep her from the evil one. And thank Him. Thank Him for loving me, that even though the world is broken He is fixing me, thank Him that there is a hope of a better life.

I love God. This world is broken, but He gives me hope. And as I sit here wanting to cry for the fatherless child I am filled with Joy that God is a father who will never leave us and He crying with me.

This world is broken, but GOD IS GOOD. I want nothing more to feel like this everyday; in pain, but with joy.