{Deuteronomy 30:19}
I used to get annoyed when people would talk about the cross.
I know--so un-saved of me, right?
It was just that I saw a bunch of people around me with problems, tons of problems, and the church was telling them, "Jesus covers it all. The cross has the final word. Just come to the altar. Jesus forgives every sin, every addiction, every iniquity!"
And I was like, Yeah, but what about the reality of the sin these people are in? It was still there, ugly and pervasive, with all of its hurtful consequences. I would be annoyed because it just couldn't be that simple. I wanted freedom for people, and I didn't see it happening. I just saw people walking the aisle over and over again, still in bondage to their sin, hurting themselves and other people. I thought, "Why don't they do something about it?
You see, I do think that, often, our perspective of the cross is wrong because it encourages people to just confess their sin, and then keep doing the same thing. In other words, we often intend to preach grace but end up preaching more bondage. But my perspective was wrong, too, because I believed I had no problems myself (ha!).
I mean, I knew I had issues, but it took some nasty spiritual warfare for me to realize the hopelessness of the situation I would be in without Christ. I began to understand that there was nothing I could do to overcome the sin, issues, and problems that I was born into as a human being. And then I started to see the cross in a different light.
And so I've realized that most of us have had it wrong--including me. I've finally come into the reality that the choice was never between sin and morality. It's not about righteousness or holiness or evil. The battle has always been and always will be between life and death.
Living in sin causes death. But so does sitting around in condemnation and shame about it. You might as well just keep on sinning if you're going to do that.
You see, the enemy doesn't care if you believe that Christ is the Lord as long as you don't allow Him in to actually bring life into areas of sin. He doesn't bother with shaming unbelievers, because he's already killing them with sin anyway. But believers require some more tricky mind games. He throws shame and condemnation on us because that's equally as effective as sin--if not more so--in separating us from God.
Through shame, the accuser will distract you with the mirror mirage of sin to draw your attention away from the real issue: death. He comes to "steal, kill, and destroy"...not to increase sin, but to KILL your spirit. If he can do it with sin, great. If he has to use shame and guilt to draw you away from the Living Water, then fine--it's one and the same to him. His end goal for you isn't sin: it's suicide.
He just uses sin because it is the quickest way to death. But he can also use disease, circumstances, disasters....whatever is convenient. He doesn't care. And he'll distract you into thinking that YOU are the problem. It's like the movie The Lion King, when Scar kills Mufasa, then convinces Simba that it's his fault, and tells him to "run away...run away, Simba, and never return!" And when Simba runs, he sends hyenas to kill him. Even though Simba survives, he lives with shame for so long that it becomes his identity, and when he is told that he is a king, he immediately denies it.
It's amazing to me how secular screenwriters are familiar with the devil's schemes, and they don't even know it.
The tree in the garden that brought sin into the world was called the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good AND Evil." Both grew in its branches. And God didn't say, "If you eat from that tree, I'll never forgive you." Or, "If you eat from that tree, I'll have nothing to do with you again." He said, "If you eat from that tree, you will surely die."
It was never about sin and disobedience. It was about life and death.
Sin is a nasty booger, but shame is what isolates us from other people and from God. We think we'll never be good enough for fellowship. That's why the enemy tells us that we should stay home, become a hermit, run from the presence of God, or even kill ourselves. He tells us we're hopeless: we'll never be good enough, that we'll live in this depression forever. He traps us in the web of thinking about our guilt until shame becomes an inextricable part of who we believe we are, and we don't even approach God because we feel like He will reject us. Then shame becomes our god, and we live to worship it, to coddle it, to appease it, to argue with it, to serve it. The rest of that chapter in Deuteronomy doesn't talk about sinning as much as it talks about serving other gods. And I think shame is one of them.
Adam and Eve hid. It wasn't their sin itself that separated them from God. It was their shame. Like us, they let the enemy distract them from the real consequence (death) with the overwhelming fear that shame brings.
People were not the first to die in the garden. The first to be slaughtered were animals--and God killed them. He killed them as a substitute to make garments to cover Adam and Eve's nakedness--which they would not have been ashamed of if not for the taste of the fruit. It was a type and shadow of Jesus. God was planning our redemption even from the moment we fell.
Yeah, we'll never be good enough. We sin all the time. You know what Jesus has to say about that?
.....So?
Really: So what?
Think about it. It's offensive. But that's what happened on the cross: an exchange that removed sin so that we could see the real battle, the battle between life and death.
If it were about sin, He could have come on the clouds and wiped out all of our sin with some assault rifles of judgment. He could have just given us the death we deserved. But He didn't. He came to die Himself. And then He came back to life, dropped the mic (so to speak), and started pouring the water of life on everyone so that we could actually live.
What a strange God He is. But I think I'll follow Him, because the sound of His voice brings galaxies into existence. He is the creator of all things: the ultimate source of life.
So....back to the issue at hand, the thing I was really frustrated about when I went to church: if the problem isn't really sin, what do we do about all this death?
The answer is this: nothing.
It's done.
Again, offensive to our religious spirit....but it's the truth. You can't shovel your way out of the junk you are in. You can waste a lot of time strategizing how to get out of the mess yourself, but it will get you nowhere except entrapped in more death, stuck in mental bondage. You can worry and worry about your problems if you want. You can give the enemy that power: to not only inspire sin in you, but then cause you to worry about it until it's all you think about, causing a nuclear blast of chronic death that is worse than the sin itself and deforms your real identity.
Yes, face up to your problems. But then allow God to be God. Stop trying to find a way out by yourself. If you spend your life arguing with the devil about who you are, you're going to lose. He's a way better arguer than you are. And at the end of all his arguments is death for you. He wants to use your problems to separate you from the only remedy that can fix them: Jesus. We didn't start the problems, and we can't finish them. There is One who has already done that.
Sometimes what we need to lay on the altar isn't our desires or dreams. It's all that crappy, nasty stuff we've been carrying for years. The stuff we've been hiding from God, shoving it in a closet in our hearts, wrapping it in scriptures in the hope of convincing ourselves that it's not really a problem.
Ironicallly, it isn't...but only if you let Him in to take care of it.
If you totally surrender to Jesus....if you not only refuse to run from Him, but invite Him into the very areas where you are ashamed...if you allow His tender mercy to come into the nasty parts of you and heal...if you pursue intimacy with Him and allow Him to come right into the mess, like He earnestly desires to do....then you will find life.
You can't think your way out. Your only job is to surrender. Believe Him. And spend time with Him. And learn what He really meant when He said, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)
Like, He's not lying, y'all. He doesn't say, "Come to Me, all of you who have figured out how to solve your own sin problems. Now you're good enough for Me."
Not even close.
Are you weary and burdened? It's not circumstances and cares that cause the most death. It's the junk inside of us.
Invite Him into the very things about yourself that burden you. I don't care what they are. I don't care if you've struggled with them your whole life. I don't care if it looks hopeless to you. If it does, good. Think about the Israelites with the Red Sea before them and Pharoah's army at their backs. If you are so sick of yourself and your internal issues that you see no way out but death, GOOD. You're about to see the Red Sea part.
Lay yourself down at His feet--not in physical death, but in death to controlling things within you that you can't control. Your emotions. Your thoughts. Your sinful deeds.
Then forget about it and let Him do His thing. He's the Author of Life. He will naturally bring life to things that are dead, regenerating lost or damaged tissue, restoring and healing.
And really, that's our only choice. I almost went down the road of obsessive thought and shame, and I felt like a crazy person. Then I thought: well, I can live for the rest of my life in this death cycle...or I can just accept the cross and just see what Jesus will do with all my problems.
To be frank, that was the option I chose simply because the alternative--continuing in the living death of shame and anxiety, or actually dying--was just so unappealing. Thinking and thinking about my problems only made them worse. I became tied up in the straight jacket of insane and irrational fear. (I wonder if that's what everyone who lives without Christ feels like all the time.) As I tried to reason my way out and control myself, everything that was wrong with me became worse, not better.
Finally, I thought, Well, I might as well let Him have control, even if I don't know if I can believe Him, if He can fix it, if He will accept me...because otherwise I'm DEFINITELY going to die.
He said, "Worship me, and let me fight your battle."
So I did.
And I still am. I'm holding on to the cross for dear...well....life. And He's been doing some inexplicable stuff. If you allow Him to love you in the very place of your brokenness, you'll find you'll start loving Him too, in a way you never dreamed.
"It's not the healthy people that need a physician. It's the sick."
You know who said that, right?
We're all sick. And though some of it may be our own fault, it's not our fault that we were born with a really crappy inheritance of sin and death. Good thing there is One who came to exchange that for a rich inheritance of life and love and joy.
The basic truth is this: Jesus Christ IS life. And if you just let Him in, He's not going to snap His fingers and create a perfect version of you, someone who never makes mistakes. But He will do some things in your spirit that will be just as miraculous as the way he created DNA and stars and butterflies. Because He's not interested in your sin. He's interested in your life.
Click here for a song that says everything I just said, except better.
