reader comment: will the evildoers never learn

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 13-07-2009

Category : Jesus, faith, living a life of faith, reader comments, sin

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Chris, over at Got-Fruit.net, had a good addition to Friday’s post “will the evildoers never learn:”

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1st John 1:9)

Perhaps this is a case of semantics, but I would say that it’s not that we’re captives of sin but rather that as you later say in your post; “it still lingers” ie;  we still struggle with sin even though we’ve been sanctified and justified by the blood of Christ.  In my own experiences as a Christian I can recall being so occupied with being good; not sinning, that I missed the point of Christianity, that Christ has already done all of the work, therefore there’s nothing that I can do to add to it. (Ephesians 2:8-9).

When you enter into a relationship with God, you are most certainly set free from the final bondage of sin (something I should have made more clear in that post).  Yet it seems that on some level we are willing to pick that bondage back up.  We seem to want to be put back into slavery. And the truth is, we do this willingly.

So while we are fully sanctified and justified by the blood of Christ (something I agree with, and believe the Bible teaches, and am grateful to Chris for pointing out) I think we are at least perceptually controlled by sin, if not in actual reality.  And as most psychologists would tell you, perception is reality. We live by how we see the world.

I don’t know where I fall on this fine line of semantics.  Maybe this is just a word game, or maybe it’s meaningful theology.  But what I do know is sin destroys people’s lives.  And if we’re not careful, even though Jesus’ death atones for our sins, we end up living out a life as if it didn’t.

will the evildoers never learn

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Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 10-07-2009

Category : God, R3, failure, sin

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……….

I rarely start out with such inflammatory headings.  R3 is a place for people to explore what it means to live out a life of faith.  I am fully aware that a lot of people who read R3 aren’t self-identified Christians.  That’s fine.  You don’t have to be.  So while I don’t pull any punches, I also don’t intentionally mean to offend people.  Insulting someone is never a way to show God’s love for each of us.

But there is something about the nature of sin that’s been bothering me the last few weeks.  And there is no easy way to say it.  The fact is, the damage sin causes shouldn’t be “sugar coated.”  So allow me to be as blunt as David was when he wrote Psalm 53: “Will the evildoers never learn?”

I’m not the first to ask.  And I won’t be the last.  Ever since that fateful decision by Adam & Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, things have been a mess.  It seems that we simply can’t stop following in their footsteps.

Why?  Why is it “evildoers never learn.”  And by the way, those evildoers – that’s us, all of us.

Are we so blinded by our pride that we can’t even see where our actions lead?  Are we so sure that we can fix any problem we make that we simply don’t care?  Or is the devil just too good at tricking us into believing that God is holding out.  Or maybe we are just so blind we fall for his same tricks every time.  Even Tom couldn’t fool Jerry every time!

What I find disturbing in all of this is that I am no different.  And neither are you.  We are all held captive to sin.  We all fall short of where we were designed to be.  And none of us can seem to break the cycle.  That’s how powerful sin is.  That’s how much control it has.

That’s why Jesus is so important.  He’s broken the chains of sin.  When we are in relationship with him, in God’s eyes we are sin free.  But sin still lingers on us.  It still hurts our relationships with others (and God).  It still causes pain and suffering.  It still destroys like a thief in the night.

Pavlov, in his famous experiment, taught dogs to salivate by hearing a bell.  If dogs can do something like that, why can’t we break free from sin?

God never gives us more than we can handle

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Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 08-07-2009

Category : God, bible, hope, sin, trust

Tags: , , , , ,

……….

God will never give us more than we can carry.

Or at least that’s what we’re told.  But is this true?  Unfortunately it’s actually a more complicated answer than you might guess.  The Bible never uses this exact phrase (the closest is 1 Corinthians 10:13).  Which means God never explicitly promises this protection.  Yet I believe it is true.  I believe that it’s in line with God’s character to never give us more than we can carry.

Sometimes, though, we pick up extra baggage along the way.

It wasn’t God’s intention for us to have this new problem (whatever it may be).  We did it all on our own.  Yet we start blaming God for what we’re experiencing.  As if he’s somehow responsible for us ignoring his advice!

Sin leads to things God never intended for us to handle.  The more we move away from how we were designed, they more things break down.  That’s a fundamental principle of how the world works.  If you build a house and forget to lay the foundation first, you’re going to have problems.  If I’m trying to write out this post and I just randomly type letters, you won’t be able to read it (some of you may suspect I do this already).

God may never give us more than we can handle, but we have a knack of making things difficult on ourselves.

Why do we do it then?  Why do we fall into the traps of addictions or greed when we know it will only harm us?  I have  to wonder if this is partly a pride issue.  We’ve become so full of ourselves, that we think we must be the solution to everything.  So we just keep piling on problem after problem, bad choice after bad choice with the foolish belief that we can “handle it.”

In his book, Wide Awake, Erwin McManus says, “I love this about Daniel and Esther – they did what they could and let God fill in the blanks where they didn’t know how it could possibly work out.” (Wide Awake, p. 73)

We worry so much about having everything perfectly mapped out before we move and act.  But maybe that’s not always the right way to do it.  Maybe what we need to do most is to act, and trust God will be in the gaps.  Maybe the reason we have so little faith in miracles, is that we leave so little room for them.

I believe that God never gives me more than I can handle.  But I also believe that 9 times out of 10 I’m an idiot.  I allow my pride to control my behaviors, and I end up making my burden too heavy.

Here is my challenge to you (and myself).  Something will come up this week.  I don’t know what it will be.  But it will be more than you know how to handle.  Pray about it.  And then whatever God tells you to do – act on it.  Don’t worry if you don’t know how it will shake out.  Don’t worry if you aren’t sure what the “plan” looks like.  Trust that God’s foolishness is better than your wisdom, and God’s weakness is better than your strength.  I think we’ll all be amazed at what happens when we let God be God.

knowledge of good and evil

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Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 06-07-2009

Category : Genesis, God, living a life of faith, sin

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……….

It seems that we are in a constant search for freedom.  We want to be free; we long to be free.  Yet we always seem to end up in bondage.  This weekend Steve McNair (who always seemed to have a knack of beating my beloved Steelers) was murdered.  The police aren’t saying exactly what happened, but from early reports it looks like it is a murder suicide (or possibly a double murder).  It also appears that McNair was having an affair with a young woman.

Now if this is all true (and it appears to be) my question is simple.  Why?  Why did McNair feel the need to be with someone other than his wife?  Was it because he felt trapped?  Was it because he wanted the freedom of sexuality?  Because it sure looks like what he got wasn’t freedom, but pain and suffering.

When God created Adam and Eve he gave them one command, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2: 16-17)

Adam and Eve had complete freedom.  They could have any fruit but one.  Yet they couldn’t resist that tree.  And they exchanged their freedom for suffering.

They thought God was holding out on them.  They thought that rule was silly, and just God being insecure and maybe even a jerk.  They thought they knew better than the person who created them.  They thought they could violate the one rule God set forth.

Have you noticed how we didn’t get knowledge of good, we just got knowledge of evil?

Adam and Eve already had complete freedom.  They already had a perfect relationship with God.  They were even soul mates.  They lived in comfort.  They were provided for.  They lived without fear and guilt.  What they got wasn’t knowledge of good – they already knew that just by looking around.  What they got was knowledge of what it means to suffer.

Steve McNair is no different than any of us.  We all sacrifice our freedom for temptations.  For some of us we give up freedom of heatlh to feed an eating disorder or drug addiction.  Some of us give up freedom of love to experience the bondage of lust and pornograhpy.  Whatever it is – we are all exactly like Steve McNair – vulnerable to temptation, because we think God is holding out on us.

As you go about your week, remember this story.  Don’t sacrifice your freedom for bondage.

abortion, murder and sin

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 15-06-2009

Category : God, hope, sin

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……….

Abortion.  Murder.  Greed.  Gossip.

As you read those think for a moment, which of them is worse?  Abortion?  Murder?  How do you decide?

I’ve been thinking about this for the last few days after seeing stories about the recent murder of an abortion doctor.  The killer has said that more violence will happen at abortion clinics.  His justification is that he’s defending a life, and so it’s okay to murder someone in defense of the unborn.  That he’s essentially doing God’s work.

The problem is, sin harms us as much as it harms others.

Which makes me wonder if God sees sins differently.  In his eyes, is murder worse than lying?  Is it the same?  Better?  In all honesty I don’t have an answer.  I’ve heard arguments on both sides, and I’m not sure I find any one of them overwhelmingly convincing.  The truth is God sees all sin as an abomination.

How could he not?

He’s perfect and every time we fall short of that perfection it’s an attack and an insult on him.  In the Old Testament what I see is a God who is most irate not at the violence and warfare of the time.  Not at the slavery.  Not at the mistreatment of women.  But at idolatry and not believing in him.

That fact is enough to drive people away from Christianity and God.

It strikes us that God is egotistical.  That he can’t handle people not worshiping him.  But I don’t think that’s the case.  I don’t see how someone who created the universe exactly needs us to feed his ego.  What could I possibly say or do for God that would impress him.  Somehow I think saying, “Hey God I shot a golf round of 95 this weekend, isn’t that awesome?” would not impress him very much.  What’s a 95 to someone who created the vastness of space?

God is so upset about idolatry because he knows if there is no relationship with him, there is no hope.  We become more corrupt, more violent, less loving the further away from God we become.  So when we worship money, people, things, other gods, it strikes at the very core of what makes us, well, us.  It moves us away from how we were designed to live.

That’s where this killer of abortion doctor’s is.  He’s violated the way he was designed to live.  And now he has harmed himself, others, and even hurt the “reputation” of God.

God is abhorred by sin.  But we don’t like that answer.  We don’t want to believe that “all wrongdoing is sin.”  We’re much more comfortable with a sliding scale where murder is a sin but greed isn’t.  Where abortion is a sin but gossiping isn’t.  We want a sliding scale because we want to feel better about ourselves.  We want a sliding scale so we can be free to judge others, and not be judged ourselves.

quote of the day: temptation

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 20-04-2009

Category : God, faith, hope, sin

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

………..

“Temptation is a sign that Satan hates you, not a sign of weakness or worldliness.” (Purpose Driven Life, p. 205)

When you read and study as much as I do, rarely are you stopped in your tracks by a quote.  This quote, however, actually caused me to hold my breath as I read it.  So often we think that our temptations are weakness.  “If only I could change” we think.  But is it possible that the reason we face so much temptation is because there is an intelligent force working against God’s will?  And if that’s true, should we carry that guilt of not being perfect?

Paul tells us, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).  Yet I have a hard time believing it. I want to be perfect for God, and get disappointed (and a little depressed) when I’m not.

I can’t live my life the way God intended until I let go of the guilt.  Until I can turn to God and say, “I am sorry” and really accept his response of “I forgive you” I will never be free.

And it’s that freedom that Jesus died for.

I deserve this

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Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 17-12-2008

Category : God, bible, failure, faith, sin

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

“I deserve this.”

Those are magic words.  Right up there with “this wasn’t supposed to happen to me.”  Each time we say it, we’re betraying the sense of entitlement we all have. 

Often the focus of entitlement is on “American culture” or “American greed”.  But I don’t think that’s the real problem.  Oh sure American’s may have a highly developed sense of entitlement, but all humans believe they are entitled.

After all, didn’t Adam and Eve feel entitled to the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?  Didn’t Jacob feel entitled to Esau’s inheritance?  Didn’t David feel entitled to more than one wife?  Didn’t James and John feel entitled to a special place at Jesus’ side?

History is filled with a sense of entitlement.

And so are we.  It’s part of human nature.  For instance, if you find out your co-worker makes more money than you, but does less work, how does that make you feel?  Don’t you immediately think you deserve more money?  More respect?  More vacation time?  And they deserve more work?

Psychologists have a theory of motivation to explain that behavior, they call it ”Equity Theory.” 

But the world is neither fair nor equal.  And on top of that, God never promised us a life of fairness or equality.  He doesn’t even promise us comfort.  He just promises us life and freedom. 

I’m not immune of course.  And a sense of entitlement fills me more than I’d like to admit.  Even as I type this I feel that I am entitled to finding a job (as many of you know, I’m currently out of work).  But I don’t want to find a job through hard work, suffering, and faith.  Instead I want this job to fall into my lap, offering a pay raise, shorter hours, and an easier commute.

So why should you care about any of this?

Because entitlement is dangerous.  It blinds us to our own greed and selfishness.  Often we can’t even recognize that what we’re doing is wrong.  Consider the person who steals a tie because he thinks he’s owed by the “establishment.”  Or someone who downloads music off the internet because “it’s not fair to have to pay for it.”

Entitlement surrounds us in sin, but whispers to us “I deserve this.”

The irony in this post is that we’re approaching Christmas.  To many Christmas is a time of rampant entitlement.  We criticize presents because they are “not quite right.”  We complain about relatives and travel arrangements.  We attack store employees because they don’t have what we are owed in stock.  And sometimes we even kill to get a good deal.   

Yet to God, Christmas is a time that contradicts entitlement.  Christmas is when God gave up every right he had, and decided to come to earth for the sole purpose of dying.  Simply to save us. 

So this Christmas, as we start feeling a sense of entitlement, maybe we need to stop and reflect about the actual cost of that feeling.  (Hint: God gave up everything for us.  It cost him his life.)  

What can we give up for him?

1 little sin…

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Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 08-12-2008

Category : David, bible, faith, sin

Tags: , , , , , , ,

  

It’s amazing how one little sin can destroy our entire lives.  We think that our behavior doesn’t really matter.  Or maybe we justify it by saying it only hurts us.  But that’s just not the case.  One little sin can can destroy everything. 

David had one little sin.  He gave into sexual temptation and had an affair.  That lead to the death of the woman’s husband, the death of their son, the rape of his daughter, the murder of another son, the coup by his oldest son, David’s fleeing into the desert, the death of his oldest son, and even the removal of his most trusted and successful general.

All because of one choice.

The next time you think one sin doesn’t matter, think again.

reader comment: king of the hill

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 17-11-2008

Category : God, failure, faith, reader comments, sin

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

 

I’d like to say that I’m home after a few weeks of travel. But I’m actually back on the road. Which is nice because where I live it’s snowing and where I am its 70 degrees. You have to love that! So while I’m on the road I want to take care of a little housekeeping and expand upon an interesting idea.

Christopher sent in an email about the king of the hill post.

The part of your post that I really wanted to comment on though is about being an individual and learning to submit to authority. From my own experiences in Christ, I have to say that once we do start to practice submitting to authority for the sake of the Lord, it has been for me, another one of those new found freedoms in Christ that you begin to experience. You’re no longer weighed down by thoughts and feelings to “defend” your ground, or to come up with arguments of justification for your actions.

Practice. It’s something I usually don’t’ associate with living out a life of faith. But you know what? I think that’s a great way of looking at it. It’s very rare that we instantly become people who can live in perfect faith. Usually it takes weeks, if not years, to overcome some of our sinful behaviors.

I think this is one of the most dangerous times of being a Christian. When we become frustrated that we aren’t changing as fast as we should be, we run the risk of giving up. We can become so upset that we keep making the same mistake we wonder, “will I ever be able to overcome this?” It’s easy to say we’re never going to overcome our selfishness, our lust, our greed, and so we give up.

But if we look at it from a practice perspective, things change. Our weaknesses no longer become impossible to overcome. Instead they represent a chance to learn and try again. In the book, God is closer than you think, John Ortberg has a prayer that simply says, “God I’m sorry I failed, please help me start again.”

God can never change our hearts if we’re running away from him because we see ourselves as failures. But he can radically change us if we keep getting back up and saying, “God, I failed, help me to stand up and try again.” This is the balance between truth and grace.

Maybe it’s true what they say: practice makes perfect.

Jesus and the man at the pool

Posted by e. barrett | Posted on 06-03-2008

Category : Jesus, hope, sin

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Jesus once encountered a man who had been an invalid for 38 years.  After listening to the man’s story, he asked an odd question – “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6)

At first I didn’t really understand this question.  Who wouldn’t want to be healed of their ailments?  Who wouldn’t want to be healthy?  But then it occurred to me, we often define ourselves by our problems and by what we can’t do.  Our troubles become who we are. 

If Jesus came to me and said, “do you want to get well?”  I’d have to be honest and say, “Sometimes I like my sin.  Sometimes it’s fun.”  Part of my identity is still grounded in sin.  And every time I think I get rid of it, I realize just how deep that identity goes. 

Part of me still doesn’t want to be healed.

Are you defined by your sins?  Or do you want to be healed?

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