Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


4.22.2009  

Displayed

The following is something I had written a while back, but simply had not published:

Last week, when talking to Scott, I told him I would hate to have my sin, all of my sin, displayed for all to see. Take a scroll and write them out or replay the video of my life; either way, there's no way that I would want such a long, seemingly endless display of horrors to be disclosed.

I've heard that same illustration used any number of times in sermons. The point it's supposed to convey is that our sins our hideous and terrible; usually this is followed up by the truth that God knows our sin and loves us still, or that we should not hide our sin, or that we all are sinful and equally deserving of God's wrath. While all true, I find that these truths, when made with that illustration, are lacking. How so? Well, simply put, they don't motivate my wayward heart to seek the Lord.

Sin weighs me down like nothing else can. It's a wretched weight to bear, it truly is. It doesn't just weigh me down, it crushes; it doesn't just bruise, it downright batters. At times, I become so disgusted with it, so hateful toward it, I begin to see clearly what Paul wrote about to the Corinthian church: "I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God reproduces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter."

I told Scott that I sometimes wish that my sin would be displayed. All of it. Full disclosure. It would be shameful and humiliating to put it mildly, but it would also be freeing: no feelings of guilt, no thoughts of, "Yes, I'm forgiven, but surely those sins are too horrible to forgive." Don't misunderstand me, as I'm not saying Christ isn't sufficient; I'm saying that I need help to battle unbelief. And yet, what is the cross if it isn't a display of the very sins I loathe most?

posted by Bolo | 7:47 AM
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