Needless to say, this morning I am struggling, driven by this phrase for several days now. Sin is anything that separates one from God. It can be thought or action, omission or commission but either bears confession.
This blog site has become a place for me to bare my soul that I might bear my life. To those now reading, concern may arise; if too much, then they have missed my point. Not sure where I am in life right now, and then again I suspect I know exactly where I am, the valley of decision. I have too many years with the Lord at this point, too much time to reflect back on, to pretend. I am at a point of deciding how I will go forward with life itself. John the Baptist had this moment and he too went forward, he would not recant and it cost him his head. If I go forward, it may cost me the joy of leadership that I find so open at this time among my dear friends, even the fellowship that I find among the brethren, those within the church, though it too is growing thin.
Making a decision is not the difficult part, I understand the process. Knowing if I am right is fraught with error. I know myself, I know my species, and we are prone to wander.
Do I struggle with the church, absolutely for I see the huge resource base consumed daily and it does not seem to slow? Those whom I trust, speak also against the institution and yet, continue in her ways, just with the denial that they are different. Have we become like the alcoholic who with alcohol on his breath denies the problem or the harlot who moves home to mother’s, only to come in a little later each evening until she is back in full business?
I hear the campaign rhetoric in the natural, Drill Baby Drill…while in the church, its Grow baby Grow, or Plant baby Plant! Restrained somewhat by this economy but unchanged nevertheless, even though many of those facilities that were once God ordained exercises of faith now face foreclosure. There is much less said about “serve baby serve” out side our own church campuses, though almost everyone knows that our cities are in trouble and out nation so deep in debt she can hardly find her way. Now the globe that has so often looked to America is beginning to struggle with America!
Things are becoming clearer as I write, I thought they might.
“Then the Lord said to Cain, “ ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.’ ” Gen 4:6-7
Sin has crouched at my door since early youth, or I would have protected my calling and perhaps been at a different place in my life. I have never mastered sin and it has never left my door. Am I different than most men, I think not. Shall I surrender to sin, of course not…I will reconcile myself to be dead to sin through Christ Jesus; yet not so gullible as to believe that I am incapable of sin, for it is ever at the door; but Christ is The Door; so if I am feeling sin, I must be near The Door?
Can sin keep me from The Door? “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man will open the door….” I think of the artist rendering of the door, with The Door standing outside knocking, yet this time I realize He is inside and I am outside. He in the Kingdom and His knock is our invitation to come inside! I am there in my life, so desiring to allow The Door to enter my door, and for me to enter His. Vexed like Lot by what I see around me, what I allow in me, even what I set before my eye gate. I’m not talking about pornography but the subtle nuances of sin that are so an everyday apart of life and the media. Must I become a recluse…monastic, isolating myself even more than is possible today as one becomes fully engaged in church, their faith absent from the marketplace?
No, I must lose myself in service to my community, not in the doing of church, but in the being of the Christ. Here possibly is the rub, can my flesh, my self doubt be used by Him? My experience says yes, though my flesh resists. I have no choice then. Will I see Him and will He be pleased with me? Is He even who I have taught Him to be for all these years? More questions than answers as I grow older.
I will trust Him, for that is faith and faith is the door of The Door.
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