Tag Archives: forgiveness

The relationship between holiness and sin

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I want to use The Kitchen for its intended purpose for a few days. This is a testing ground for half-baked thoughts, so I want to present something more as a proposition than a proclamation.

I’ve been thinking a lot about man’s relationship to God, especially in light of ideas presented by N.T. Wright. (Jay Guin has been resuming some of Wright’s thoughts while discussing one of Wright’s latest books)

My basic thought is this: God wants man to live with Him forever. However, nothing sinful can survive in the presence of God, much as darkness cannot remain in the presence of light. Therefore all sin must be removed for man to be able to live with God.

I’ve moved away from the basic “sin demands a price” way of looking at salvation and see it more as “holiness eradicates sin.”

I’ll try and flesh out those ideas a bit, but I wanted to lay out the basic idea. Maybe someone can totally refute it before I waste too much time trying to explain it.

Sins of my past

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file0002062790027I got a bit nostalgic the other day. Well, no, that’s not the right word. I got to thinking about the past the other day. And not the good things.

Images and events came to mind that made me want to crawl under my desk in shame. I felt the hot blush of embarrassment as I thought of things I’d said or not said, of things I’d done or failed to do. How many things are there in my past on which I’d love to have a “do over”?

I need to remember those things. Not to shame myself or keep myself humble. No, I need to remember those times as I deal with people who have wronged me in the past. I need to remember my mistakes, my awful mistakes, as I listen to others say things that hurt me deeply.

I think about my past mistakes and feel that I’ve grown and moved on from those moments. I need to give others the opportunity to do the same.

Image courtesy of MorgueFile.com

Prayer of Francis of Assisi

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Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

Francis of Assisi

Changing the Past

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[While we’re traveling in Argentina, I thought I’d post some of the things that I’ve written for the HopeForLife.org blog; they’ve also been posted to Heartlight. Comments are moderated until I get back; sorry about that folks. Some people don’t know how to play nice.]

Alfred had dedicated himself to the science of war. A talented scientist and creative inventor, he studied ways to create new and better weapons. Specializing in explosives, he created dynamite. While you may think that he was a man who enjoyed war, quite the opposite was true. He felt that if he could perfect the instruments of war, it would be impossible for man to wage war. He once said, “My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.”

That dream of peace through improved weapons was shattered by World War I. Alfred’s dynamite and other inventions were used to kill more and to kill faster. Yet he continued on his quest for peace.

One morning, Alfred picked up the paper and was shocked to read his own obituary. Through an error, a French paper had printed Alfred’s obituary instead of his brother’s. It was a terrible shock to this peace-loving man to see himself labeled as “the Merchant of Death,” portrayed as the man responsible for thousands of deaths. This was not how Alfred wanted to be remembered. So in his remaining years, he worked with lawyers to set up a foundation that would give yearly prizes for chemistry, physics, medicine and literature. Today if you ask someone about Alfred Nobel, few will call him “the Merchant of Death” nor connect his name with dynamite. We remember, instead, the Nobel peace prize.

We may not be able to change our legacy that dramatically, but we can do something even better. We can take our past mistakes, our old lives, the guilt and regrets that we’ve built up through the years, and have them erased forever. God has promised to separate us from them “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12) … and that’s pretty far! God will look on us as though we’d never done anything wrong. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Wouldn’t you like to wake up tomorrow and know that you can be proud of every aspect of your life? Jesus can make it possible. A new start, a clean slate. It’s there for the taking.

www.hopeforlife.org

Copyright Herald of Truth ministries

Life’s Undo Button

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[While we’re traveling in Argentina, I thought I’d post some of the things that I’ve written for the HopeForLife.org blog; they’ve also been posted to Heartlight. Comments are moderated until I get back; sorry about that folks. Some people don’t know how to play nice.]

There was a time in my life when I thought Liquid Paper was the high point of technological advances. What could be better than a product that could cover up your mistakes? It was the student’s best friend (well, at least those of us who couldn’t afford to pay someone to type our papers for us). You would type a line and make a mistake. Dab on some whiteout and … VOILA! The mistake was gone. After a few seconds of blowing on the paper, you could type over the error (hopefully with the right letter this time). Of course, the messy splotch on the page told everyone you’d made a mistake.
Then I was introduced to the computer (back in the day when disks were floppy and “hard drive” referred to driving through the Arizona desert with a 55-mph speed limit). And I discovered the UNDO command. Type … mess up … hit UNDO … your mistake was gone. And no one could tell that you had made it. Later came programs with multiple UNDOs and even unlimited UNDOs. It became easier and easier to fix things that were done wrong. Now I hate it when I discover something can’t be undone. It’s frustrating to do something on the computer, change my mind about it, and then find that I can’t go back. What’s done is done. I sit and think harsh thoughts about computer programmers, rather than face the fact that I’m the one that made the mistake.
Don’t you wish life had an UNDO button? Something that would let you turn back the clock and make it as if you’d never made a mistake? I’ve found that it does, in a way. The Bible tells me that God is willing to take my mistakes and move them away from me “as far as the east is from the west.” Through Jesus, I can be continually forgiven for the mistakes I make. When I am in a relationship with God, when I have fully identified myself with God’s son Jesus, I can have full confidence that he will UNDO all of my mistakes. I may still have to face consequences for my actions, but all guilt will be taken away. And that’s a good feeling.
Think about letting God give you a fresh start. If you’re not a Christian, I hope you’ll take the time to learn more about joining God’s family. It’s a decision you’ll never want to UNDO.

www.hopeforlife.org

Copyright Herald of Truth ministries