There is a story Christ told regarding two sons, a prodigal
who takes his money early, leaves home, lives wild, loses everything and comes
home expecting to be a servant. Most
believers are familiar with this story, it represents the majority of those who
come to find God out of the world of hate.
But I identify more with the other brother, the other son who stayed
home, did what he was told, worked hard, got no special recognition, and was a
bit upset when a feast was made for the one who came back forgiven. No, I do not resent new found converts for
finding God, but I do envy them.
Why envy the new guy?
You almost never hear that one.
You see for the new guy, forgiveness is a new experience, and wiping out
a past of bad deeds and seeing the wisdom of good is new. For me it is understood. But the other brother who stayed home had a
fatal flaw in the story of Christ. He
believed he did everything he was told.
He believed he had earned His Father’s favor. He worked for his reward. And yet he failed. His pride was his undoing. The cancerous addictive nature of sin
absolutely rules our carnal natures, we are slave to it. Our ONLY out is to throw ourselves before the
throne of Grace and ask for its dominion over our will and lives.
The new guy has a new experience. He does not yet know what death really
is. There comes a time when after
serving the Lord for many years, or trying to serve Him anyway, that you begin
to realize how absolutely HORRIBLE sin really is. It is as if you discovered the true nature of
crack cocaine for the first time. It is
not the substance of feeling good, it is the key poison in killing everything
you love, and then you. This is what sin
is. What all sin is. Past all the marketing campaigns that evil
devises, past all the rationalizations we dream up, past the momentary ‘high’
we might feel when in the act of sin – comes the realization it is death on a
stick.
No one is immune.
Least of all me. And now days,
when I screw up, really screw up, do something so incredibly stupid,
predictable, and destructive – even if it is just a thought I harbor in my mind
for much longer than I know better – I discover death again, up close and
personal. Me and the brother who stayed
home in Christ’s parable I think share a knowledge of how deep the pain is from
experiencing sin up close and personal.
We struggle with it, try to hide it when we do it, and long for the kind
of celebration our wild-living brother gets when we find ourselves prostrate
before our God again.
For me there is such a thing as life after death, but not
the idea of my soul existing after my physical form returns to the dust. That is not a Biblical teaching, and is
counter to the logic of our God. But my
body need not decay for me to cozy up to death.
Every time I embrace evil, I literally jump right in the coffin and beg
for the dirt. I find myself looking back
at my level of stupidity in dumb founded silence with no words, no excuses, no
one to blame but me. And I am amazed
that I could do that yet again. This is
truly death. Eternal sleep that follows
the justice of a final fire we call hell, will be a rest, will be peace – it
will be the final peace only the wicked could truly appreciate. For to live in a state of evil is to
experience a living hell, a living death, a living level of pain that is off
the charts, that is the truer meaning of hell.
Eternal sleep is mercy compared to that.
This the knowledge that staying at home brings.
So where is the life I talked about? It is found yet again at the foot of the
cross. As I find myself back there
again, watching the blood of my Savior God drip down the wooden implement of
torture. I know He is there for me again. I put Him there again. It takes this to restore me. It took this to bring me back to God clean
again. The cost of my evil must be paid,
the mercy of my God, requires the blood of His innocence for my guilt. My sin is not paid for cheaply. It is not just the agony of Christ that will
cover me. It is my own realization His
agony is my fault. It is for me He does
this. It is for me, His love is this
great for me – I cannot even begin to imagine why. I cannot even begin to imagine why He looks at
me this way, why He would go this far for me, again and again.
I am forgiven. In the
eyes of my Father God, I am pure, seen again through the robes of His Son’s
righteousness despite my addictive stupidity.
Heaven can forgive me. Heaven has
love enough. But me. I am not that developed. I am not good enough just yet. While Heaven may see me as forgiven, all I
see is the stupidity I immerse myself in.
I accept the forgiveness the He offers.
But I marvel at its depth. I
wonder at His motive and wisdom in loving such a parasite as me. Grace is anything but cheap.
But there is again something I crave more than forgiveness,
that is reform. Past the pain of
acceptance and forgiveness is the absolute craving to avoid a recurrence. I do not want death anymore. I do not want to indulge in my stupidity
anymore. The consequences of stupidity
pale in comparison of the price it takes in my Savior’s blood, and in the ache
in my heart to get past it again. Lead
us not into temptation. A phrase that
becomes the mantra of my life. To change
the core of who I am. To change the
desires of my heart. To bring my heart
into alignment with the will and wishes of a perfect God. This is my ultimate desire, my highest
ambition, my finest goal.
The thing about living at home in the family of God is that
when you screw up, your siblings are usually the first to point it out. More often than not, they take great pride in
investigating what you do, and joy in their righteous ridicule of pointing out
your obvious misdeeds. They throw rocks
of truth at you. You see, you know
better. You know way better. You understand. Yet here you go again. The evil one comes to you in this after
action moment to try to squeeze out the last ounce of hope from you by
reminding you only of everything you already know to be true. You know better. What on earth are you doing … again?
But you see the same Father who ran down the road to greet
his wayward son in his abject failure, is right outside the door of your
room. He enters, puts His arm around
your shoulders and picks you up off the floor again. He cleans up the wounds you created, heals
the pain, and makes you new again. In
His quiet unassuming manner, He is your Father, family Physician, and Savior in
one complete package. He throws no
rocks. He makes no condemning statements
of obvious truth. He meets you right
there in the filth you have created, and pulls you out. He gets your dirt on Him, your smell
transfers to Him, your consequences He takes, and you get His cleanliness. This is the Guy you chose to live with. It was a good decision. There is nothing out there in the world of
hate waiting for you, but death on a stick.
Living under the roof or the protection of the Father, that
is the right choice for me. I do not
envy my brother who experiences great evil.
I would rather share in his great forgiveness, for you see I am just as
dirty as he, just as big a failure as he.
The only difference between me and my brother, is I live a little closer
to the source of love, and perhaps now we will both share that too. Life was born from the pain of the
cross. But Hope remains that one day
there will be no more need to revisit that site again. One day the God and Savior of my life, will
fully and completely change the core of me, perfecting in me His own image, His
own will, His own love. My Hope clings
to this as tightly as my Faith that He will yet execute it within me.
When you give your life to God, give it all. Give to Him, your thoughts, your desires,
your motives, your actions, your inner being, your personality, your hopes,
your dreams, your valued things, and your most precious relationships. When you give your life to God, give it all. There is life after death for me. And I pray to the only one who can affect
this change within me, that in spite of me, He will make it so in me…
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