What does it mean to love sinners? What does it mean to love the lost? What does it mean to love our enemy? What does it mean to love our neighbors? What does it mean to love?
I've realized my love (in practice, not in understanding) is so narrow and so selective. My heart has broken occasionally for the church or for people I know personally and enjoy their company, but it has never been broken for the lost people I do not know, or are not close. I can intellectualize about it and come up with a mental ascent for how important they are, but it's never sunk into my heart. I pass people on the street and in stores day after day, and I just walk by them. I may give a half smile, and possibly a nod, but I could also very probably look stern and deep in thought, careless and carefree to their presence. Then there's a lot of people I know. "Friends" that by a realistic standard are mere acquaintances, and I know they're on a path to hell, but do I care? If I did wouldn't I be running alongside them screaming and begging and pleading for them to head my warnings and turn to Christ, the one person that can save them? I know evangelizing to every stranger you see is a bit much, but people I have a relationship with, I don't believe I care about them. This realization hurts me, because this love isn't something I can muster of my own power, this love is supremely...divinely greater than any pathetic love we can attain on our own. I do love people who are close to me, and I'm beginning to love those who are opposed to me, but how much do I love those who are at a distance but still connected to me? God, break apart this death inside of me. Give me your heart, a heart that was broken over Jerusalem, a heart that loved people he had barely met, a heart that would lay down it's life for strangers and people who betrayed him. Oh God, transform me. This need I confess, this need I know you will meet. Please send help soon.
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Showing posts with label confession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label confession. Show all posts
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Saturday, March 3, 2007
God saved a wretch like me. That is indeed amazing grace.
This is much more a public confession that a spiritual challenge or corporate edification. As a follower of reformed theology, one of the core pillars of my theology is total depravity. In layman's terms, I believe that mankind is completely depraved and incapable of doing anything good and pleasing to God, apart from the grace of God, after the fall. I believe that is the fundamental necessity for election and God's saving us apart from our own will and works. I will not get into that debate, but I bring up depravity because I feel consumed by it. I know that I am justified as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, because I have faith he died (and rose again) on behalf of me in an act of propitiation (taking the punishment in my stead to appease the wrath of God) and an act of imputation (clothing me with His righteousness so that I stand holy and blameless before God). This was done so that I could be adopted into the family of God. With that said, I will start my confession.
Reading the bible has always been a struggle for me. Lately I have improved overall, and I owe it to the tender mercies of God, patiently veering me towards righteousness and sanctifying me. I observed a few weeks ago that I was not currently depressed. It's not surprising, because I was fighting to remain faithful to scripture at the time. That was the second time I had almost made a habit of faithfully arming myself with the sword of the spirit, and then as I let one day slip by, without fail, I once again have not read anything for about a week. Without fail, I have slowly returned to spiritual depression and pessimism.
I am noticing the necessity of reading scripture. For the years (yes, years) that I did not read, I was unaware of the depths of my corruption. I was under the belief that I led a good life and wasn't "as bad as those Godless sinners", but in retrospect I realized that I was lost and blind and corrupted by the desires and lusts of the flesh, and because my sight was so jaded, I was not viewing my life in the lens of God, but in the lens 0f man, and who would not look good in comparison to others. The tendency is not to look to men that are better than you, but to keep your eyes focused on those who are worse, and in this lens, we all look spotless, though in reality we are a lighter shade of grey (though no where near white). When I got serious with my faith and started to read scripture and fervently pursue God, I started to get a glimpse of just how corrupted I was. The more tasted the Lord's goodness, the more unquenchable a desire I had to be consumed by him. This state is where I have found myself (on the whole) the past year or so of my life, to the glory of God who brings the dead to life. For the time when I pursued God, but did not study God's word, I relied on experiences and feelings to "grow" in God. This is the point where you get the camp high when you're immersed in "churchy" people and "churchy" things, you get this sense of euphoria, but it fades when you return to life. This is the type of shallow religion you breed when you rely on experiences and feelings without them being rooted in absolute truth and concrete scriptural doctrines of God. You can experience God, and not really know God, but you can never understand those experiences unless you study God's word and view them in the light of scripture. This is my observation of my recent past.
Now in regards to the present, as a dog returns to his vomit, I have returned to my futile ways of apathy and neglect of the scripture for a brief moment. I have no excuse, and dare offer none, but rather accept personal responsibility and make a conscious effort to redirect my life back into the authority of scripture by the reading and digesting of it daily. I have learned that one of the causes of my depression is a lack of reading scripture. I have learned that I am not happy unless I am meditating on the law of God night and day. This is my passion, this is my heart, and when I neglect it, I neglect my own pleasure and my own desires. I open myself up to countless lusts, to anger, to sinful sarcasm, to joking about my own sinfulness (which I am sad to say I do too often as of late), and to mocking the God I serve, the Christ who died to save me, countless times. When I neglect the word of God, I slow down my sanctification and resort to the death inside of me that I should be killing daily as I yearn to become like Christ. I have the taste of bile on my lips, and now I see more clearly (tho not clearly enough) than ever how wretched I am, but I cleave to the hope that Christ, who started a good work in me will continue it until the day of completion. Oh, how I desire that day. Why God chose to save me, and why he sent His only begotten son to die for me, I do not know, and I do not deserve.
In closing I ask any of you who read this, to remember to be a thorn in my (flesh's) side and keep me accountable to read and be a faithful servant of my God. God please love me, for I cannot love myself. God forgive me, for I am desperately wicked. God please change me, for I amd damned without you. Amen.
Reading the bible has always been a struggle for me. Lately I have improved overall, and I owe it to the tender mercies of God, patiently veering me towards righteousness and sanctifying me. I observed a few weeks ago that I was not currently depressed. It's not surprising, because I was fighting to remain faithful to scripture at the time. That was the second time I had almost made a habit of faithfully arming myself with the sword of the spirit, and then as I let one day slip by, without fail, I once again have not read anything for about a week. Without fail, I have slowly returned to spiritual depression and pessimism.
I am noticing the necessity of reading scripture. For the years (yes, years) that I did not read, I was unaware of the depths of my corruption. I was under the belief that I led a good life and wasn't "as bad as those Godless sinners", but in retrospect I realized that I was lost and blind and corrupted by the desires and lusts of the flesh, and because my sight was so jaded, I was not viewing my life in the lens of God, but in the lens 0f man, and who would not look good in comparison to others. The tendency is not to look to men that are better than you, but to keep your eyes focused on those who are worse, and in this lens, we all look spotless, though in reality we are a lighter shade of grey (though no where near white). When I got serious with my faith and started to read scripture and fervently pursue God, I started to get a glimpse of just how corrupted I was. The more tasted the Lord's goodness, the more unquenchable a desire I had to be consumed by him. This state is where I have found myself (on the whole) the past year or so of my life, to the glory of God who brings the dead to life. For the time when I pursued God, but did not study God's word, I relied on experiences and feelings to "grow" in God. This is the point where you get the camp high when you're immersed in "churchy" people and "churchy" things, you get this sense of euphoria, but it fades when you return to life. This is the type of shallow religion you breed when you rely on experiences and feelings without them being rooted in absolute truth and concrete scriptural doctrines of God. You can experience God, and not really know God, but you can never understand those experiences unless you study God's word and view them in the light of scripture. This is my observation of my recent past.
Now in regards to the present, as a dog returns to his vomit, I have returned to my futile ways of apathy and neglect of the scripture for a brief moment. I have no excuse, and dare offer none, but rather accept personal responsibility and make a conscious effort to redirect my life back into the authority of scripture by the reading and digesting of it daily. I have learned that one of the causes of my depression is a lack of reading scripture. I have learned that I am not happy unless I am meditating on the law of God night and day. This is my passion, this is my heart, and when I neglect it, I neglect my own pleasure and my own desires. I open myself up to countless lusts, to anger, to sinful sarcasm, to joking about my own sinfulness (which I am sad to say I do too often as of late), and to mocking the God I serve, the Christ who died to save me, countless times. When I neglect the word of God, I slow down my sanctification and resort to the death inside of me that I should be killing daily as I yearn to become like Christ. I have the taste of bile on my lips, and now I see more clearly (tho not clearly enough) than ever how wretched I am, but I cleave to the hope that Christ, who started a good work in me will continue it until the day of completion. Oh, how I desire that day. Why God chose to save me, and why he sent His only begotten son to die for me, I do not know, and I do not deserve.
In closing I ask any of you who read this, to remember to be a thorn in my (flesh's) side and keep me accountable to read and be a faithful servant of my God. God please love me, for I cannot love myself. God forgive me, for I am desperately wicked. God please change me, for I amd damned without you. Amen.
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