sin part 2
So the problem has been stated. The roots of sin are pain, love, fear. Well what do we do with that. I found it hard coming back back to the church. My folks gave me the option : live with us and go to church, don't go to church and live somewhere else. It was pretty clear that I had nowhere else to go. So I went church hoping. I checked out a few churches and wasn't at all interested.
You see the thing is, christians are people too. Christians sin for the same reasons as everyone else. Jesus doesn't come by and say "ok, you will never feel pain again! YAY!" not how it works. What Jesus does do is he can heal the pain. My pain by that point in my life had caused my heart to grow cold. It was black with hate, green with envy, and despite my large size, very small. Like I said earlier, sex, drugs, money, power, all these are only bandaids on open heart surgery. Christ is the surgeon. Christ gave me a new heart. A heart that feels for people. A heart that bleeds. 3 times too big. We feel pain not so that we can wallow in our misery, but so that we can do something about it. Now I hear about foriegn wars and I want to do something about it. I want to vote. I want my opinion to be heard. I hear about world hunger and it brings tears to my eyes to think of starving children with no homes running from government agencies who want to kidnap them and turn seven-year-old kids into soldiers. In justice bothers me. It makes this new heart heavy. But thats the thing, Christ gives us these feelings so we can do things to change the world.
Speak. Let your voice be heard. If you are for a war in Iraq, serve in the military, If you are against it, vote. If world hunger bothers you, travel the world and feed the hungry. If Global warming makes you sad. Do something about it. Christ puts these things in our hearts so we can act on them.
(steps off the soap box)
The thing is Jesus gives us a heart transplant. The old self dies, the new is alive. But we still need to feed our hearts, guard our hearts, and let them grow. I heard once that all spiritual blessing comes in seed form. I like that. Take the seeds that Jesus has put in your heart, feed them, let them grow. These seeds are no roses. These seeds are redwoods. These seeds will grow to be mountains.
For the matter of love, it says in 1 John "God is love". Now this can be expanded on for days. But taking God out of love, is like taking the motor out of your car. It doesnt work. You can sit in your drive way all day and imagine what it would be like to be driving down the highway at 70mph, but without a motor, you wont get there. No with me, I ended up pulling the car across town. Love bacame a burden. I had a motor in the car, I just refused to turn the key. "Nono, God",I said "I've got a better way to travel." So I took my neon strapped myself to the front bumper and pulled it around everywhere I went. Eventually It ran me over.
Looking for love in family, friends, acquaintences is fine. But without God being the center of that love, it will only turn into bitter burden. Ya know that empty lonely feeling? I used to get it all the time. C.S. Lewis calls it a God shaped hole. I like to think of it as a pit, it has a bottom...I've been there...What happens is we fill this pit with things of the world to feel better about ourselves. Yes, it worked, for a short time, a very short time. The reason is, I kept filling my pit with balloons. I had all kinds of balloons, Big Alcohol Balloons, little money balloons, average size sex balloons. My pit was overflowing with balloons. The problem is, life is solid. So when I had thrown in the Anvil of getting fired from the club, all my balloons popped. And there I was, at the bottom of my pit, with a big ugly anvil, and no balloons.
No heres something awsome, Jesus emptied out my pit. Took out all the balloons, all the ugly anvils,but didn't leave me empty. The thing about Jesus is he will never leave you empty. So he took my empty pit and filled it with living water. Christ took my ugly pit that I knew of love, and turned me into an overflowing well. That is what Love is supposed to look like.
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FEAR
According to wikipedia:
Fear is a basic emotional sensation and response system ("feeling") initiated by an aversion to some perceived risk or threat.
We fear what we do not know. Fear ruled a good part of my life. But what is it that we do when we are afraid? We perceive, we project, we guess. We assume the future. C.S. Lewis does a great job of putting this into context in his "The Screwtape Letters":
"Our buisness is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we somtimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has some determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the future. Biological necessity makes all their passion point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, So that in making then think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time-for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all these schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, on the very cone of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead."
In the sermon on the mount Jesus says don't worry.
Matthew 6
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
You see the thing is, christians are people too. Christians sin for the same reasons as everyone else. Jesus doesn't come by and say "ok, you will never feel pain again! YAY!" not how it works. What Jesus does do is he can heal the pain. My pain by that point in my life had caused my heart to grow cold. It was black with hate, green with envy, and despite my large size, very small. Like I said earlier, sex, drugs, money, power, all these are only bandaids on open heart surgery. Christ is the surgeon. Christ gave me a new heart. A heart that feels for people. A heart that bleeds. 3 times too big. We feel pain not so that we can wallow in our misery, but so that we can do something about it. Now I hear about foriegn wars and I want to do something about it. I want to vote. I want my opinion to be heard. I hear about world hunger and it brings tears to my eyes to think of starving children with no homes running from government agencies who want to kidnap them and turn seven-year-old kids into soldiers. In justice bothers me. It makes this new heart heavy. But thats the thing, Christ gives us these feelings so we can do things to change the world.
Speak. Let your voice be heard. If you are for a war in Iraq, serve in the military, If you are against it, vote. If world hunger bothers you, travel the world and feed the hungry. If Global warming makes you sad. Do something about it. Christ puts these things in our hearts so we can act on them.
(steps off the soap box)
The thing is Jesus gives us a heart transplant. The old self dies, the new is alive. But we still need to feed our hearts, guard our hearts, and let them grow. I heard once that all spiritual blessing comes in seed form. I like that. Take the seeds that Jesus has put in your heart, feed them, let them grow. These seeds are no roses. These seeds are redwoods. These seeds will grow to be mountains.
For the matter of love, it says in 1 John "God is love". Now this can be expanded on for days. But taking God out of love, is like taking the motor out of your car. It doesnt work. You can sit in your drive way all day and imagine what it would be like to be driving down the highway at 70mph, but without a motor, you wont get there. No with me, I ended up pulling the car across town. Love bacame a burden. I had a motor in the car, I just refused to turn the key. "Nono, God",I said "I've got a better way to travel." So I took my neon strapped myself to the front bumper and pulled it around everywhere I went. Eventually It ran me over.
Looking for love in family, friends, acquaintences is fine. But without God being the center of that love, it will only turn into bitter burden. Ya know that empty lonely feeling? I used to get it all the time. C.S. Lewis calls it a God shaped hole. I like to think of it as a pit, it has a bottom...I've been there...What happens is we fill this pit with things of the world to feel better about ourselves. Yes, it worked, for a short time, a very short time. The reason is, I kept filling my pit with balloons. I had all kinds of balloons, Big Alcohol Balloons, little money balloons, average size sex balloons. My pit was overflowing with balloons. The problem is, life is solid. So when I had thrown in the Anvil of getting fired from the club, all my balloons popped. And there I was, at the bottom of my pit, with a big ugly anvil, and no balloons.
No heres something awsome, Jesus emptied out my pit. Took out all the balloons, all the ugly anvils,but didn't leave me empty. The thing about Jesus is he will never leave you empty. So he took my empty pit and filled it with living water. Christ took my ugly pit that I knew of love, and turned me into an overflowing well. That is what Love is supposed to look like.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FEAR
According to wikipedia:
Fear is a basic emotional sensation and response system ("feeling") initiated by an aversion to some perceived risk or threat.
We fear what we do not know. Fear ruled a good part of my life. But what is it that we do when we are afraid? We perceive, we project, we guess. We assume the future. C.S. Lewis does a great job of putting this into context in his "The Screwtape Letters":
"Our buisness is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we somtimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has some determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the future. Biological necessity makes all their passion point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, So that in making then think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time-for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all these schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, on the very cone of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead."
In the sermon on the mount Jesus says don't worry.
Matthew 6
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Christ Heals the pain
Christ Fills the pit with Love
Christ Encourages us when we are afraid
Welcome to the tip of the iceburg.
posted by Its not about Perfection, Its about Progress at 9:12 AM
1 Comments:
No words describe the soul quenching joy I experienced as i read your post - if I could post the worship my mouth uttered out loud to my Lord, i would, but it would be gibberish to you. (such is the language of the Holy Spirit...lol)
Your words only served to solidify all that the Lord has been speaking to me this day - I have been so looking forward into the future that God has for me "I have to prepare myself and heal so that I'll be ready for the full time ministry God has for me" or "Who is the man God is going to bring me to partner with me in this ministry?" or "how am I going to pay off my debt?!" - but even in spiritual words - listening to prophecies given over my life, etc...I was still using the future to escape - and the lord is telling me "live in the now - go through the healing that I am bringing you though now, not for the ministry that I'm preparing you for, but so that you can be so incredibly intimate with me, you won't care about your ministry, you'll simply want to always be in my presence". The Lord is teaching me what it is to be "one" with him - the absolute communion with the spirit....the absolute...I can't describe it...I can only describe it as the way I I imagine God intended sex to reflect this spiritual aspect...the absolute mingling of the souls...God's teaching my soul how to mingle with his...and hopefully soon his will will have replaced mine...
but all if I can let go of what you spoke of - the fear - fear of failure, fear of dying an old maid, fear of falling asleep aone in a bed at night...fear of being fat and ugly...lol.....
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