Lately I've been rereading The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. This book is beautiful because it's all about God's grace for us. I think before we look at grace, we need to understand who God is, what sin is, and why they are both such a big deal. In part two, I'll spend time actually talking more about God's grace.
Who is God? This question is too big to answer in any concise way, but I'll do my best. God is first and foremost, holy. What does that look like? It means that God is set apart from us. God is by nature perfect on top of being holy. This means that God can't be in contact with anything that is unholy or having sin.
What is sin? I think it's pretty hard to summarize as well because it's such a large thing to understand. When translators tried to translate the words for sin in Greek and Hebrew into English, they had a hard time finding a way to encapsulate what sin is. They picked the word "sin" because in archery anything less than a perfect bulls eye is considered as such. Sin can literally be translated into anything that is short of the mark.
If you've ever read Leviticus, the third book in the Bible, you've gotten a pretty good idea of what sin is. Granted, these laws were written for a specific people in a specific time. God had rules for everything from how to eat to how to handle dead animals. There were ways to make yourself ritually clean after coming into contact with sin and death. These laws were created to not only keep God's children safe, but also create an understanding that we can't make it to God apart from God Himself. As a result, the Israelite people had to sacrifice animals. The blood of the animals covered the debt in blood that God's people owed.
Jesus Christ was sent to atone for our sins, or the ways that we miss the mark of what God calls us to. This is really powerful because the Bible states "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6:23. We all sin because humanity is inherently sinful. You can argue that this is not the case, but who teaches toddlers to lie? No one, but they still do it.
Sin equals death and God equals life. This is really important to remember because apart from God we are dead both on the inside and will be eternally separated from God in death. We need Christ in our lives to become alive and be united with God in Heaven.
Monday, July 24, 2017
Monday, July 17, 2017
The Inside and the Outside
I started a new job three weeks ago. I clean windows with my new job. It isn't the most exciting job I've held down when you look at just the title, but it is an amazing job for so many reasons. I am able to work with some fantastic Christian guys and spend a lot of time with God as washing windows is pretty mindless. I'm going to talk about those two things here.
Recently, I've found jobs where the people I work for aren't Christians. This in of itself isn't an issue, but it does make going to church consistently hard. My new boss doesn't like to make us work on Sundays as he thinks that we end up worshiping money and not God if we work too many Sundays. It's also been hard to talk to people about my faith in a way that I'm not being belittled. However, on the first day of washing windows, we were talking about theology, which is one of my favorite things to do. My coworkers and I eat together as often as we can, which I absolutely love. It's been really awesome to be able to spend time with such quality guys.
For the past several years I have been struggling with an addiction to tobacco. It's been really easy to hide as I was chewing. My clothes and my hair didn't stink so people wouldn't be able to tell I just had a pouch in my mouth. It has been really cool to hang out with Brandon, who has overcome many addictions and be able to pick his brain about not only theology, but giving up addictions. Anthony, my boss has been super supportive of me quitting and even let me schedule a doctors appointment to talk about quitting. I am very excited to be able to finally let this habit go.
Like I pointed out previously, washing windows is pretty mindless. So it's very easy for me to spend my time praying and thinking about God. A lot of the houses where we wash the windows are very big and beautiful. However, they have their flaws: smudges in the paint, dying leaves on their plants, and so many more small issues with their beauty. This makes me think a lot about how Christ talks to the teachers of the law in Matthew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness." These houses and often times the people are nothing more than whitewashed tombs. The people we work for spend lots of time trying to look good for others, but on the inside they are rotting without Christ.
Through my job, Anthony has been able to tell two hardcore Muslim women about Christ. They both asked why we as a crew were so patient with them when they were being so demanding. Anthony responded with "Christ in me" and was able to talk about Jesus. Before we do commercial jobs we pray for opportunities to share the love of Christ with those we are serving. It has been amazing to be able to pray with my boss in that way.
Going back to Matthew, I spend a lot of time thinking about being a whitewashed tomb. I know that as a sinful human, I can spend a lot of time being a hypocrite. In fact, we are all hypocritical in some ways. As a result, I pray a lot asking God to wash me as I wash windows. I know that on my own, I'm nothing more than just a tomb that looks beautiful on the outside and is full of death on the inside. I also know that with Christ living in me, both my insides and my outsides are made clean. Sure, I still wrestle with sin, like everyone else, but in realizing that I sin, it allows the grace of God to have that much more of a hold in my life.
When I know that I am nothing besides God, it forces me to lean into His embrace all that much more. When I spend time reflecting on where I fall short, it gives me that much larger of a chance to ask God to pick up the slack.
Recently, I've found jobs where the people I work for aren't Christians. This in of itself isn't an issue, but it does make going to church consistently hard. My new boss doesn't like to make us work on Sundays as he thinks that we end up worshiping money and not God if we work too many Sundays. It's also been hard to talk to people about my faith in a way that I'm not being belittled. However, on the first day of washing windows, we were talking about theology, which is one of my favorite things to do. My coworkers and I eat together as often as we can, which I absolutely love. It's been really awesome to be able to spend time with such quality guys.
For the past several years I have been struggling with an addiction to tobacco. It's been really easy to hide as I was chewing. My clothes and my hair didn't stink so people wouldn't be able to tell I just had a pouch in my mouth. It has been really cool to hang out with Brandon, who has overcome many addictions and be able to pick his brain about not only theology, but giving up addictions. Anthony, my boss has been super supportive of me quitting and even let me schedule a doctors appointment to talk about quitting. I am very excited to be able to finally let this habit go.
Like I pointed out previously, washing windows is pretty mindless. So it's very easy for me to spend my time praying and thinking about God. A lot of the houses where we wash the windows are very big and beautiful. However, they have their flaws: smudges in the paint, dying leaves on their plants, and so many more small issues with their beauty. This makes me think a lot about how Christ talks to the teachers of the law in Matthew 23:27-28 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness." These houses and often times the people are nothing more than whitewashed tombs. The people we work for spend lots of time trying to look good for others, but on the inside they are rotting without Christ.
Through my job, Anthony has been able to tell two hardcore Muslim women about Christ. They both asked why we as a crew were so patient with them when they were being so demanding. Anthony responded with "Christ in me" and was able to talk about Jesus. Before we do commercial jobs we pray for opportunities to share the love of Christ with those we are serving. It has been amazing to be able to pray with my boss in that way.
Going back to Matthew, I spend a lot of time thinking about being a whitewashed tomb. I know that as a sinful human, I can spend a lot of time being a hypocrite. In fact, we are all hypocritical in some ways. As a result, I pray a lot asking God to wash me as I wash windows. I know that on my own, I'm nothing more than just a tomb that looks beautiful on the outside and is full of death on the inside. I also know that with Christ living in me, both my insides and my outsides are made clean. Sure, I still wrestle with sin, like everyone else, but in realizing that I sin, it allows the grace of God to have that much more of a hold in my life.
When I know that I am nothing besides God, it forces me to lean into His embrace all that much more. When I spend time reflecting on where I fall short, it gives me that much larger of a chance to ask God to pick up the slack.
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