December 02, 2011
Wired
In discussing forgiveness, salvation and worthiness, a Bible study
member said, “Some people are convinced that
they have done such bad things in their past that their unworthiness stays with
them even when they stand before the Lord. They are just wired to be guilty.”
She makes an interesting observation. Looking back at my re-birth in Christ I
didn’t automatically feel at home in my new skin…and even after decades of
being a believer, there are times that someone shows me my Christian skin is a
little too tight or a little too loose. I suppose we all come to the Lord with
some faulty wiring. “Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has
come!” (2 Cor 5:18 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----At one time I had little regard for philosophy. But as I kept searching for why politics in such a blessed land as our US of A have become so insane, I began to appreciate philosophy. The more I discovered the difference between what it really is and the casual conception of it floating around the streets, the more I saw its necessity. Real philosophy is the logical search for the answer to the most of the questions the usual answers raise, maybe in an over simplified way of stating it. The more questions an answer basically satisfies without itself raising unanswerable questions, the greater is the assurance that it drills towards the truth. The convenient thing about knowing the Lord is that we are given the basic answer to all questions in the Word of God. Being truth itself, it drills right to the finality of our search regarding the realities of a god and mankind: God is what He is and accordingly does what He does. That is the securest answer upon which to rest all questions causing decisions in our lives because the effect it causes is our study of His Word and obedience to it accordingly. Faith is the universal answer satisfactory for all questions between that highly useful, final answer and all of the practical questions like how many beans it is proper to eat in one situation as opposed to another.
-----Answers to those “tweener” questions depend as much upon external facts and circumstances as they do upon the internalized meanings and values of the answer searcher. So Paul can say in Romans 14 that each of us need to be convinced in our own thinking even about things upon which one’s thoughts are diametrically opposed to another’s thoughts. Logic says that two opposites can not both be true or both be false at the same time in the same sense. One must be true and the other must be false. Yet Paul says both conclusions, each being opposite of the other, are indeed acceptable at the same time, one for one and the other for the other. Faith doesn’t reconcile the two conclusions, it reconciles the two people. Moreover, Paul and the rest of the Bible make much over knowing Jesus Christ and Our Father, yet Paul turns around and states that knowledge puffs up. (I Cor 8:1) What’s up with that? John writes, “We know that any one born of God does not sin,” (I John 5:18a) after he writes, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (I John 1:8) Of course faith reconciles these scriptures, but succinctly applying it as the answer builds no knowledge, which maybe we weren’t meant to have anyway.
-----”Let God be true though every man be false.” (Rom 3:4) Our new birth does not render us sin free. We are still humans with bodies. But it does render in us a new dimension (life) that the un-reborn have not: a perfected, living spirit joined with God’s Spirit. In the flesh we are guilty, not in the spirit. So our guilt will pass away with our flesh - it is dead - but our spirits are already made alive with Christ. In Him they are what we will be. But we are not it yet because we are still in the flesh. So we still feel the guilt of the flesh just like we still feel its bruises, scratches, and cuts. But the pain of that guilt is as countless towards our eternity as is the pain of a broken arm. Neither will be there when we are dumped from the flesh into His presence.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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