Hello blog fans - had a break in the book review to talk about Sunday school today and it is definatly something worth talking about!!
Wow, what an eye opening moment. As Gino was talking about what the nature of sin really is and what exactly Christ did for us I got the most amazing understanding of the nature of what Christ gave us and exactly why we needed it.
Sin, by definition, is the desire to follow your own selfish way. The choice to believe that we are the god and master of our universe and therefore our choices are the correct ones always.
Sin entered the world (and human DNA) when Adam chose to go against the wishes and then lie about it to the almightily God who already knew what he was trying to hide. A useless endeavor for him to even pretend to think of in the first place and the seed of sin itself. Thus selfish actions against the directives of a loving and caring Father God entered the world and man began to believe that he was the master and god of his own fate. Sin.
Christ came and paid the ultimate price demanded for our living a selfish life and gave us Grace. However, where I had always been bogged down was in the thought of sin (and Grace) as actions. But today I realized that they are not actually actions, they are desires that live in us. Both sin (from the fall) AND Grace from the Cross both live inside us and every moment of every day we are presented with choices to make that are the path of selfishness or the path laid by the Cross.
Sin lives in us because we are human and cursed to live in this world from the fall in the garden, however, Jesus paid the price of our redemption so that Grace could also live in us equally if we accept it. Jesus's act on the Cross actually gave us 2 things, forgiveness, and the DESIRE to do what God wants instead of our own fleshly desires.
Here is the big revelation :) Neither Sin nor The gift of the Cross is an action. They are actually the desires that live within us. By the time we get to an action we have already made the Godly choice or sinned in our heart. By the time we actually do something that is not of God we have already determined to do it, reasoned it out, and then acted. It makes sense now that God would judge the heart rather than the action of a person. The choice is already made by the time it reaches action stage. This is why Jesus said that if a man even looked at a woman with lust in his heart he had sinned already.
Jesus actually gave us two things when going to the Cross. 1st and most importantly, he paid the blood price for our sins and therefore it does not matter weather we sin or not if we are under the blood the price is paid. This is why it is so important to understand the second gift of the Cross, which was the Holy Spirit. This is what lives inside us and actually stands against our sinful nature to say choose the Godly path. What changes in our lives when we accept Christ is not the ability to do “right” but the ability to choose to follow God.
This is actually so much deeper that I am hesitant on going on any further here because I don’t want to run through what God gave me into what I speculate, but sounds good.
This leaves me with a side note that I want to add. God NEVER punishes anyone. I know, seems almost blasphemous doesn’t it, but hang on; it makes sense when you put it all together. God does allow life (random events from a fallen world) and consequences of bad choices in our lives to happen to us. That is NOT God punishing us. The Bible defends God as the lifter of our heads. The one who lifts our heads would NOT be the one who beats it down first. We can do that perfectly well enough ourselves and if we stumble with beating ourselves the devil is perfectly happy to jump in with his own brand. God NEVER beats us or “takes us to the woodshed” because He NEVER punishes. At worst, He uses the circumstances of our lives to train us and show us another way. That means WE have to accept responsibility for OUR own actions. Sometimes, it is true that events happen that are not our fault such as cancers and unexpected job loss for no reason other than the economy, etc… but most often events happen in conjunction with choices that we made in our lives, in how we ate (pointing the finger at myself), how we handle our finances, how we raise our children, etc…
This is NOT to beat ourselves up over, there is enough of that going on. This is to learn and correct. This is to more clearly see the picture of who God is, not that we will ever see it all or even understand all of what we see. But life is a quest to mimic God and it is impossible to mimic anyone with ANY success, unless you know who they are. Life is about finding out and reflecting to the world around us WHO God is. And the bottom line for this revelation to me, If God is a God who punishes his kids in any shape or manner than He would be saying that the Cross was not enough. That is the bottom line, if you want to believe that God punishes his children for anything, then you also have to say that the Cross was not enough. Think about it!
Great Sunday School lesson Gino!!!
B
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