I have been a little frustrated over the past few days. I just returned from an overwhelmingly successful winter retreat and should have an equal sense of joy and satisfaction yet I seem to be torn by a sort of depression. Can someone prove to me that there is a God? And moreover, is there anyone out there who is really living a sinless life? If not, what the point? Comments welcome.
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3 comments:
Nyk,
I have prayed for you and your depression today. I am sorry that I can not prove God to you in some kind of empirical sense but I believe that there is convincing evidence for God everywhere. I hope you will see my love for you as a brother also as evidence of God; let me know if you need anything and I will do my best to try and help.
As for what the point may be of “living a sinless life”, I do not know because whether we can or can’t has never been the point God was trying to make to us. I don’t think God cares about sin, he cares about people and therefore sin only becomes the obstacle that tries to keep us from the more noble goal of loving and being in relationship with others and God himself. God took care of that obstacle of sin, not just because he hated sin, but more so because he loves people.
The point is to be reconciled in love with the other; both God and everyone else in the world. I pray as God carries you through this period of depression that he will show you his love for you and those around you. I pray that you will know that God loves you way way way more than he could ever “hate your sin”; and that he delights in you for who you are, who he created you as, and not just for your potential.
Peace brother,
James
Amen, I couldn't have said it any better. You can also count on my prayers. I have felt the same way many times and during those times I can only wrap myself in the arms of Jesus...and trust.
First off, I have joined others I'm sure, in praying especially for you the last couple days. God is certainly able and though that has become a cliche, it's Truth as well.
How many times have we all privately screamed out those questions? Is there anyone living a holy life? If not, what IS the point?
I believe the arena where those questions are bred, is dominated by our continual observance of spiritual failures which form the landscape of our personal environment. In addition and making things even more problematic in this realm, is the reality of when it's just God and our personal selves in private communion: The realization of how far short of His glory and how great our personal failure is in comparison to the Christ with whom we have attempted to emulate. I think both these human realities, however, render the faith questions moot.
Sin doth abound both around and in us. We all know it, yet are so undesireous of giving such reality validity.
I think we get in trouble in these areas as a result of having personal definitions of what ACTIONS constitute sin. We all have our personal preferences in this realm and even the most liberal among us, have a line we draw that dare anyone cross it: Surely they sin!
By practicing such, we have re-instituted the law. Grace and Mercy are cast aside in whatever degree, varying only by the proximity of that line we draw upon ourselves and others.
I think it almost indisuputable that Christ declared in a number of different ways, the "demise" of the law and its effect upon us in our obedience, replaced with the new covenant of Mercy and Grace. Paul took this and ran with it carrying it even further down the line, to where it's not the observable behavior (My body is dead to sin . . . sin ravaged.) but rather the motive (Yet my spirit is alive unto God.) of said behavior that determines our obedience. His whole ministry was based on that throughout all his epistles.
At your most holy, you will always be deemed "sinful" by some and regardless of who it is you may have as your spiritual icons, they, too, will fail the observable behavior test in some areas.
"Sin" is anything short of God's glory. But for the Blood (Whose Viablity replaced the law's cancellations of our humanity's shortcomings.), all are deemed sinners and unworthy of communion and eternal abode with God. We were created in and with sin and in this life, we will not be able to discard it.
What can be purified are our motives, volitions, why we do what we do. That's the portion of the soul (Soul: Mind and/or Intellect, Emotion, and Will and/or Volition.) -- the spirit -- that CAN be purified via the infilling of the Holy Spirit. That infilling comes at the crisis moment where we realize that salvation and forgiveness, as wonderful as it was, has only promoted spiritual failure in our lives as we're continuing to live for self, and not God.
Via the empowering and infilling of the Holy Spirit, we now live ONLY for His approval in ALL THINGS! Everything we do in life that takes choice is grounded and encased in our desire and motive to please God. What actually becomes observable behavior from that motive, is really not an issue, as long as the will to please God was employed. The Blood will then cover whatever results and not be held against us.
That is true obedience . . . our desire (motive) to please God in ALL we do and never an intent to disobey or please ourselves over Him.
If what we VIEW in our own lives and what we SEE in other believers around us, is what we base our faith upon, then there IS no point. However, if we can substantiate the motive for what it is we SEE as pure and desireous of pleasing Him, then Holiness is what is actually being viewed. (I'm not certain any one of us should be about determining the volitional motives for others' actions. We have our hands full with our own and our own boards to deal with.)
I look at my observable behavior and I'm nauseated contually. Still, I know what drives me and I know why I do what I do and that is because I strongly feel that I am pleasing to God in what I do and though my humanity makes it appear anything but sometimes, I know what purpetrated the actions!
Now, having grown up in a legalistic environment as I did, it's STILL, here in my second half-century of living, almost impossible at times to make my humanity accept as reality, the theology of whit I've just written. It's so hard on me to realize that my physical behavior will in and of itself, NEVER measure up to Holiness of Heart and the life style such is to replicate. That's when I am at my lowest spiritually and often.
I know that I know that I know that what I've done is what God wills as I have discerned it to be, but still it appears so corrupted and short of His Glory. I'm left to ponder: What then, is the point?
The point is that I'm to take Him at His Word on faith and to live it out on faith! When that reality dawns within and it has to within me almost on a daily basis due to the overwhelmingly legal heritage of my life, Peace begins to overwhelm me and basking in it becomes so therapeutic . . . but lasts only as long as I can keep my eyes off what I SEE. However . . . Peace is reigning longer and longer as I age. Praise God!
This probably has little relevance to you and I apologize if it doesn't. I've just been there so often asking those same questions, and I'm sure I'll return tomorrow, and it prompted me to once again share the road to Peace in my life in those areas and how I attempt to maintain it.
Thanks for your openness and honesty.
I do trust your day has been blessed as never before.
Hardy Ulmet
www.christiancadence.blogspot.com
Cahoona@Juno.com
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