Friday, June 5, 2009

Face Down In Shallow Water

I consider myself to be a basically good person. But I make mistakes, as we all do. Some mistakes are by accident, and then some are on purpose. In my world, I have another name for those intentional mistakes. I call them sin.
Sin is a topic that most Christians don't like to talk about these days. The reasons for that are numerous but I think , by far, the most prevalent reason is that we all know sin is wrong and that we are all guilty of it. I can hear the collective groans right now of those who are reading this and hate being reminded of our sin nature. Sorry.
I just wanted to bring this up because I just don't hear about sin as much as I used to. Not that I want to obsess on the subject but I don't want to ignore it either.
I used to spend a lot of time in the Christian book stores, but not so much anymore. I got so sick of all the prosperity books, and the "how to make God answer your prayer books" and the mamby-pamby feel-good, floating on a cloud books that I just can't deal with them anymore.
I used to listen to tons of sermons on line, but again, now not so much. For the same reasons I don't read the books anymore. It's all fluff. (You don't know how much I wanted to name names in that last paragraph, but I decided not to. Coward.)
I am firmly convinced that is why we have so much false teaching in the churches today. It is because we wink at sin or ignore it altogether. Very few preachers will talk about sin from the pulpit anymore because it may alienate some of the folks in their congregation. That's too bad because as leaders of the flock they should be more concerned about the eternal destination of their sheep than they are about being politically correct.
Sin needs to be talked about in the church..…from the pulpit. Why? Because everyone in the building is a sinner. Some will argue that they are not as bad a sinner as another person is and they will take comfort in that. My reply to that is this. Whether you are in sinking in the middle of the ocean or you are face down in shallow water, the outcome is the same. You are going to drown. Sin has the same affect. Whether you revel in your sin or try to avoid it at all costs, we are all still sinners and in need of a Savior.
Jesus understands that. It is the whole reason that He came to earth and did what He did. He rescued us from our sin. But if we don't recognize or acknowledge our sin, it detracts from the value of the Cross.
Again, I'm not advocating that we all obsess about sin. Rather I am advocating that we understand our position. That we are sinners and require salvation from some one other than ourselves. We require Jesus.
So fellow sinner, praise Jesus that you are saved and forgiven.
For truly….truly…truly…YOU ARE!

It's like Red Bull for the Soul!

PS. Sorry it has been so long since I last posted. I realized that most of my blogs have been very serious and somewhat preachy. I was trying to write something more fluffy, more soothing. I finally came to the conclusion that there is very little in me that is fluffy or soothing. Sorry. If it gets to be to much for you., there is always the delete button. Later!

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