I Have Been Slimed

"I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; Many will see and fear And will trust in the LORD."
Psalm 40:1-3 (New American Standard Bible)

As I think of how I came to Christ in my late 40's, I think of what a slimy pit of miry clay He pulled me out of. As I think of the struggle with my sinful nature, I think of that same slimy mire. The beauty of it now is that I know He will pull me out. Before I came to Him, I did not even know what I was wallowing around in. As hard as I try to stay out, I am sure I will plop in from time to time, but have the assurance of knowing a rope will drag me out if I sing that new song He has put on my lips.

A personal relationship with Jesus as Savior means to grasp what it is to be rescued from self. I know how miserable the future would be without Him now, and I can wait patiently (well, at least I can be patient when I remember to turn to Him in prayer and praise) for the deliverance He has promised.

I have the knowledge, acceptance and trust of a saving faith in Christ Jesus. I have been washed clean, and continued to get washed as I struggle though a fallen world coping with a sinful flesh.

I was slimed, about 47 years worth as a matter of fact. Only Christ could wash that off and keep me that way.

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It's So Easy

The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
Oswald Chambers - My Utmost For His Highest: April 6 Devotional

The ease to which our salvation can come to us is often the hardest thing to grasp. We borne nothing at the Cross and gained everything. It may be hard in our pride to accept the fact that we are insignificant in our own salvation, the hard work was done without us even being a part of it. How much more a salve to pride to think we accomplished it through great struggle and significant accomplishment on our part. Our salvation is not accomplished through our great struggle but despite our great sin.

That we grasp what is so freely offered, and so painfully won to hand over to us in an incredible ease. Grace pours out of the heart of God,, the heart that absorbed the pain of our sin and freed us from it.

The collision occurred, but we get to walk away from that crash, unscathed and saved. We get to come off of His mountain because He climbed it for us.




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Not About Me

The LORD said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them.
1 Samuel 8:7 (NASB)

I find this sound advice in all areas of life if you are following hard after the Lord. I find it comforting to know that it is not about me. If I am rejected or made fun of by others, it is nothing personal. At least, it is nothing personal regarding me. it is the Lord who is suffering that rejection, it is not mine to bear.

How freeing it is to accept the fact that it is God who bears the insults and the barbs, the Lord truly is my shield, my rock as well as my Redeemer. How easy it should be to move ahead proclaiming His Gospel knowing that I matter not, He bears it all, just as He gave His all to save us from ourselves, from our sin. If I am not doing what he calls me to, it is not that I have to bear the burden, but in my own struggle with sin and I am not reaching out to have Him bear it all for me.

The voice of the people may shout defiance at God, but I should only hear the soft whisper of the Lord.


Technorati Tags: God, Jesus, sin, freedom, rejection

Jesus Wept

Every once in a while, I feel the need to lay down something that vaguely resembles a poem. Here I go again. I am never sure when this all will show, but only that it comes from when I spend time with the Lord thinking about Him and His Word. This one comes from meditating on John 11:

Jesus Wept

Tightly bound within my sin,

No earthly struggle set me free.

Cast down in sinful gloom,

No earthly light reached within.

Jesus wept to see the sinner that was in me.

A mind so clouded could not think,

Of anything but life lived yet lost.

Darkness the blanket that covered me,

Weight too heavy to overcome.

Jesus wept to see the sinner that was me.

Calling forth, He burst the bonds,

Sunlight’s shaft cleaved my tomb.

Rock split wide, prison released,

Sin is no longer spellbinding.

In gladness now my own tears fall,

Because Jesus wept and died and set me free.

A. Coticchio - 11/09

Technorati Tags: Poetry, Jesus, Lord, God, sin

A Thought For The Day

I attended an Igniter Lunch at Evantell yesterday and heard Dr. Stanley Toussaint from Dallas Theological Seminary give a talk. As usual, Dr. Toussaint was on top of his game, and deep into the Word. Some of the thoughts he conveyed:

• The Cross is 3 dimensional: up and down, across and out
• When you think of the Cross, the about sin, God and people
• When you think of sin, think about our redemption; we are bought by the Lord, it is permanent We are never back out on the market to be bought again.
• When you think of God, think of propitiation; God is satisfied by what Jesus was done
• When you think of people, think of reconciliation; we need to turn back to God. It is one way, God never turned from us

He summed it up nicely in what I like to think of as a thought for the day:

• Sin is paid for
• God is satisfied
• All that is left is for people to turn to God in faith

He also gave what I thought was a great point from his first year of seminary. If someone has trouble accepting that Jesus died for all of their sins, past, present and future because how could He die for our future sins; ask them how many of their sins had they committed before Jesus died on the cross. Great way to think of the sufficiency of His sacrifice, the atonement is still working 2000 years later.

Dr.Toussaint packed a lot into a short talk, so glad I went.

A Sweet Flame

I have finished my reading of A Sweet Flame by Jonathan Edwards. Throughout the book, I was struck with Edwards' struggle with his own human condition, his sin, his feeling of inadequacy to do the Lord's work, the church divisions and controversies that arose and often affected him. Viewed as a giant today, it was clear that was not a universally held belief amonst his contemporaries. That comes not as a surprise, members of the church have always dealt with that, starting with Jesus Himself. WHat comes through is the relevance to the struggles today of struggles written about around 250 years ago.

The last letter to address specifically is the letter he wrote to Lady Mary Pepperell speaking of the loss of her son. It is the letter the term a sweet flame appears in, the letter that gave title to the book.

Edwards writes in length of the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus, of His death. But he also writes of His resurrection and ascension, of the hope that gives us. Edwards makes no apology for the suffering in life, the pain Lady Pepperell bears. Our Lord had pain and suffering in this world, should we expect less?

Edwards speaks of the glory of Christ, of His holiness. How "His love to sinners appeared like a sweet flame, burning with an infinite vehemence against sin". It is because of our sin that the flame of Christ burns hot, to remove that impurity through His sacrifice. Although it burns and may be painful in our lives at points of time, it is sweet to think of the eternal state He has wrought for us.

Jesus. He is our sweet flame, for we are all sinners.

The Nature of Sin

We have to recognize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming. Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue— if sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that. The culmination of sin was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will also be true in your history and in mine— that is, sin will kill the life of God in us. We must mentally bring ourselves to terms with this fact of sin. It is the only explanation why Jesus Christ came to earth, and it is the explanation of the grief and sorrow of life.
Oswald Chambers - My Utmost For His Highest: June 23 Devotional

Sin is mutinous, sin kills, sin is a fact of life. Pretty dismal if that was all there was, if that was all we had to work with. If there was only our sinful selves, each and every one of us.

²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 3:23 (NASB)

But we cannot give up for there is a hope we all have in our Savior.

¹Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ²fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NASB)

We can mess things up on our own, we have proven that since the beginning, but we cannot make right what has gone astray. Not alone. Not without help.

But by the Lord's grace we have it.

No Sin, No Shame

²⁵And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Genesis 2:25 (NASB)

Adam and Eve could stand before their God is this state because they were both pure and without sin. Can we stand before God without shame today? No, not given the sin that entered the world, and the sin that is in our nature as a result.

So, we must be clothed by Jesus to be justified before God, to be declared righteous in His eyes. Is is only with Jesus in front of me, shielding me from my own sin, that I can stand before the Father, that I can come before Him in prayer, in praise, and ultimately in worship.

¹⁰as it is written, "THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;
Romans 3:10 (NASB)

There will be a day when I will be brought before the Lord in my resurrected state, and I like to think that is the state Adam and Eve were once in, without sin and unashamed.

²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Romans 3:23 (NASB)

That will happen one day. Right now I have to get through this sinful world, of which I am part, as best I can, trying to face my God, having Him look at me through the eyes of My Savior.

Necessary Volunteerism

Unless I am mistaken, we have sufficiently proved that man is so held captive by the yoke of sin that he can of his own nature neither aspire to good through resolve nor struggle after it through effort. Besides, we posited a distinction between compulsion and necessity from which it appears that man, while he sins of necessity, yet sins no less voluntarily.
John Calvin - The Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.4.1

We are captive to sin and can only break free by putting our faith in Jesus as Savior (and hopefully as Lord of our lives as well). I truly believe that.

We are sinful by nature and want to sin deep at our core. I truly believe that.

So we sin by necessity of our captivity and voluntarily by our nature. I hate it when Calvin nails it dwon so firmly that I can only struggle like a butterfly pinned in someone's collection.

It is thinking along these lines that drives me back to Christ each and every day to seek His strength in overcoming what I am and what I am helpless to combat without my Lord and General.

I know many do not like Calvin and I can understand that getting hammered like this day after day as you read him is not most folks idea of fun. But the nuggets of truth buried herein, mined out and brought to the light of your day, can make you reflect on who you are, and more importantly who Jesus wants to be for you. Your Savior, your Lord, the General to lead you into battle against your sinful self.

Sin: Which Way Do You Spiral?

The chief point of this distinction, then, must be that man, as he was corrupted by the Fall, sinned willingly, not unwillingly or by compulsion; by the most eager inclination of his heart, not by forced compulsion; by the prompting of his own lust, not by compulsion from without. Yet so depraved is his nature that he can be moved or impelled only to evil. But if this is true, then it is clearly expressed that man is surely subject to the necessity of sinning.
John Calvin - The Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.3.5

Calvin's point is clear, we have no choice but to sin, it is our nature to do so. You may not always agree with Calvin, you may not even like him. But it is hard to argue as you look at the world, as you look at your own life, that we are sinful by nature and need to be saved.

As we have no choice but to sin, we have no choice as to how to be saved form sin. It is only through Jesus, through trust and faith in Him that you can be saved from the inevitability of your sin.

I think that is hard to accept because in our pride we do not like to admit we are helpless in anything, that there is something that is totally beyond our control. In essence, that is the result of the very sin nature that is embedded into our very core.

A never ending spiral, or so it would seem. You can either spiral down into your sin, getting ever deeper into it for i think there is truly no bottom to the depths one can sin to. Our you can spiral up and out to the Lord. The first way you can go it alone, the second you need to ask God for help.

He is calling, answer. His Spirit is willing, is yours?

Intolerant

I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior and as Lord of my life.

I believe that faith and trust in Him is the only way to my salvation, that I can do nothing to earn or merit it myself.
I believe that God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to die for us.
I believe that God loves the whole world but that sinners grieve Him deeply.


I believe we should hate the sin but love the sinner.
I believe God grieves all those who do not turn to His Son in faith as Savior.
I believe that I am a sinner and no better than anyone else, but that Jesus redeemed me by His death on the Cross.
I believe we should be in this world, but not of this world.
I believe I should model Christ's behavior every day, even knowing I will always fall woefully short of the goal.



I believe we should love on people, even when they less than like us.
For all of this, many would call me intolerant. I pray that I am not, nor will ever be. That is the road I seek to travel.

I have to ask, who is intolerant?

The Infinite Lessen

I have been reflecting on the fact that God is an infinite God. All encompassing and of no end. I have been thinking about being sinful by my nature, a sinner by my actions and having that detract from the glory of God. It cannot no matter what I do.

If you take one away from infinity, you still have infinity. God is infinite with or without me or you. If I never came before Him to accept Jesus as my Lord and savior, God would still be infinite in His being.

Jesus died as a finite human because of the infinite love of His deity.Our sin grieves Him, but does not diminish Him nor His glory. He is the same without us, but it pleases Him for us to come to Him.

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9 (NASB)

God wants us all to Him out of His love, not for any need for His glory to increase. He cannot be lessened by what we do (or do not do). He wants us out of love. We should want Him for the glory of God that comes into our lives.

We cannot lessen the infinite nor can we increase the infinite, we can only gain from it.

Three Days of Reflection in Three Years

As I look at my journal page for today (which I have talked about before here) I have recorded thoughts on the following verses over the past three years with my thoughts in italics:

"then hear from heaven, from Your dwelling place, their prayer and supplications, and maintain their cause and forgive Your people who have sinned against You."
2 Chronicles 6:39 (NASB)

...I feel inadequate to lead, I struggle daily to meet your standards... 11/15/06

"I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against Me and by which they have transgressed against Me."
Jeremiah 33:8 (NASB)

For without this graceful mercy, I am lost, I am helpless...11/15/07

"Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth."
1 John 3:18 (NASB)

He wants not just words which can be empty and cheap...11/15/08

I am seeing a pattern here. I am struggling with my own weakness year after year, but I pray I am making progress and am starting to focus on others needs as opposed to just my shortcomings.