May 07, 2012
Your Sins Will Find You Out
Using the passing lane on an uphill climb I zipped past a small car in
my van. Almost immediately my hands free phone rang and when I answered the
voice at the other end said, “Don’t you
think you’re going a little fast there?”
Squinting in the rearview mirror I tried to connect the voice with a
face, but I finally had to ask who I was speaking to. I was relieved to learn
it was a former colleague who was driving her mother’s car. We had a good
laugh, but the situation reminded me that God isn’t the only one keeping an eye
on us.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----The body He called us into is vital to our spiritual well being. Among its many effects is the “finding out” of our sins. Of course, we call that “busy-bodyism” and impugn it, which often it is and deserves to be impugned. Many things we do are sins only because of the faith (or lack thereof) from which we do them (Rom 14:23.) Therefore some things one person does might be sin, but they might not at all be sin when done by another. Other things are sin to all: lying, cheating, stealing, etc. The operation in the body that does “find out” and “call out” the sins of others without being sinful “busy-bodyism” is honest and true love.
-----Our society does not naturally foster backpressure to sin outside families and other tightly knit groups. For interactions surrounding situations that may or may not be sin depending on the actor’s faith, this is good. We just don’t know strangers and mere acquaintances well enough to know what their faith means to what they do. But for expressly defined sins, this shows how precious little our society knows love or deals in it.
-----The general feeling we get about not being busy-bodies regarding sins defined by personal faith bleeds over to our treatment of sins expressly defined by the Word. The common reaction to seeing a stranger or acquaintance take advantage of someone, or deceive them, or slander them is to enjoy the show. And blowing the whistle can make more show to enjoy, so the spectator role is not too good. The whistle blower role is better. But the loving role is the best. Still, stepping up to the perpetrator and addressing him for the good of both himself and his victim is labeled “busy-bodyism“. Two things indelibly remain important: the safety of someone else’s interests, and the correction of another perpetrator.
-----Matter hates a vacuum. Something will always rush in to fill any void. Spirituality is no different. We who love Jesus have not done body life well. That’s left a void filled by very unloving misdirection. Social pressure now comes against correcting one another, especially when only the Scripture defines an action as sinful. "Busy-bodies" are as apt to get knifed in the belly by society as by perpetrators. And it is even developing that social pressure greatly applies corruption itself, especially if the corruption is fingered by the Bible.
-----We’ve so feared belly knifings that we’ve all run from telling our neighbors stuff like what they do in their bedroom is our business because it effects our society, or like telling little Johnny why not to look at little Sally that way. Ellen Degeneress has become JC Penny’s poster girl for this same effect in reverse. Anyone expressing the slightest problem with her sin is publicly strapped to a whipping post beside the guy who told little Johnny to honor his future wedding bed by limiting today’s fun with Sally. The lashings applied are meant to be instructive to us all.
-----So ask Jesus about the vulnerabilities of love. On His Day this whole sordid society will be found out by the accumulation of its own sin. Don’t build into what will be found out by making vacuums of silence. Rather, go be a loving part of the body; correct for the good correction will do, and don't fret the belly knifings.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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