May 26, 2015
Synchronizing
When I delete something on my
computer it goes into the trash and then the computer synchronizes the trash. I
don’t get it. I suppose there could be some sort of computer dumpster in the
cloud that requires my trash to be organized. Thank goodness God doesn’t synchronize
our sins. “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake,
and remembers your sins no more” (Isaiah 43:25 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I suppose the need to synchronize our sins, at least from our perspective, depends upon our abilities to recognize sin. If you are Mormon, drinking a regular Coke is a sin, or even coffee. If you’re other than a Mormon, then being a Mormon is a sin, and everyone will drink a Coke to that. So, what really is a sin? Much of sin is definitely discernable as being such. It’s unmistakable. But most of what we stress over whether or not to do is more indiscernible. The definition of sin ultimately is in God’s mind. But we don’t read His mind too well today. So we must wait to know sin certainly and totally. Presently, we only know in part, and that includes knowing His Word.
-----Looking at it realistically, we are going to trash some activities we think are sin that really are not sin as God knows them. I am convinced that God deals with us somewhat like we deal with toddlers. We know when they’re making messes and being inappropriate (which for a toddler is pretty much all the time.) But we also know when propriety is beyond their comprehension. Although we don’t let them get away with everything, neither do we harangue them over everything. We pick our interference carefully so that the toddler will learn a few things each day rather than overwhelming him into confusion every day by confronting his every imperfection. So, by His forbearance, He plays along with our throwing the Coke into the trash as much as He does our cursing it as we throw it there. But the day we realize Jesus Christ really is God, we will want to through our Mormonism into the trash, and then, we might want to drink a Coke to that, too.
-----Microsoft synchronizes the trash bin in case you later realize the file you threw into it was actually not trash. By its synchronization, the file can then be restored to the folder from which it was dumped. Why should we think sin is any different? We could say, “Because we have the Holy Spirit convicting us about sin.” Oh, really now. Of course we do have the Holy Spirit. And of course, He does convict us of our sin. But that does not mean all conviction of sin comes from the Holy Spirit. We convict ourselves of many sins the Holy Spirit would not otherwise. Consider the Amish, the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the Seventh Day Adventists, and yes, we need to pull the Mormons out of the trash and consider them, too, for these all claim and rely upon the convicting and convincing powers of the Holy Spirit. And they all read the Scriptures, to boot (maybe not so much the Mormons.) Yet their lists of what the Holy Spirit convicts as sins all differ from each other. We do convict ourselves as sinning for some things which are definitely not sins. Of course, God will consider them sins according to our faith about them, since we’re the toddlers.
-----But as toddlers grow, so does faith. There are things in my life which I understand today as not sin which I understood in the past as being sin. In God’s trash can for sin, there is no synchronization because He knows for real. But our trash cans can not be His, because we don’t know fore real. The sins we throw there must be synchronized so that for instance, the mistaken sin of worshipping God on Sunday might be restored to its healthy practice by the repentant Seventh Day Adventist.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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