A deciding factor on some of my purchases is whether or not the item
will show dirt. A light color car always looks cleaner than a dark color car. A
coffee spill or grease spot can be seen on a solid colored shirt easier than on
a patterned shirt. I even picked out my kitchen counter tops based on the fact that
the texture and multicolor would hide the stains, wear and tear. My selection
worked all too well and now I find it’s almost impossible to keep the counters
clean. Because I can’t see the spills and food crumbs in a small area I have to
wipe down the entire counter to make sure it’s clean. I’m wondering if I do
something similar when put myself in situations where the dirt of sin will be
hard to detect and not always cleaned off. In the world my sin is not going to
show as easily as it does in the believer’s world.
1 comment:
Gail;
-----We’re really not supposed to have any more sin in our lives. Most of the people Jesus healed He told to go and sin no more. John tells us in his first letter that anyone born of God does not sin. But the writer of Hebrews tells us we have not yet struggled against our sins to the point of shedding blood. John tells us in his first letter also that anyone saying he has no sin deceives himself. Therefore, patterns of behavior tending to mask sin naturally develop in us. Some patterns even develop intentionally. It isn’t entirely good or bad. It just is. Thank God for His grace.
-----By His wisdom we are textured with multicolored patterns. Although each of us is a temple for the dwelling of God’s Spirit, we are also built into a temple all together for His dwelling. So what we truly are individually effects others through the mutuality of fellowship. Influence spreads errors around as well as perfections. That the patterns and textures mask sin provides some benefit towards purity of the body, and some detriment.
-----Paul implies a fuzziness across the boundary between right and wrong. He tells us that we should not condemn ourselves for what we allow ourselves if we don’t doubt it’s being right. But if we do doubt it and do it, then we are condemned, because we do not act in faith. For anything not proceeding from faith is sin (Rom 14:22-23.) Moreover, as if we need to be told, he underscores the different degrees to which we each have faith, “...I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him.” (I Cor 12:3-4) We do many things from the measure of our own faith that are beyond the measure of others’ faith. And we do some things even beyond the measure of our own faith. Either way, Paul makes it clear that we should allow such doings a good masking, if not actually make it, by not doing such things in sight of those with lesser measures of faith.
-----At Romans 14, Paul shows a good purpose for categorizing people with less faith than your own. Mask from their sight things you do from your faith which they might think are sin. Then regarding the things you do not from faith, the sins you allow, James and John say we should confess. People of more faith can better treat your confessions and be less effected by them. All of this is another reason why church is more than sitting in a pew beside other folks. It is a call to actually know one another well. Our failure to completely overcome sin by our own ability makes utility in our textured, colorful surfaces, while our failure to completely confess makes detriment.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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