What a Fool Believes

08.23.12

Somewhere in 1 John 1: If we claim that we're free of sin, we're only fooling ourselves. MSG

During most of this past year I worked for an organization whose mission was to protect small business’s interests in the state capital and in Washington DC. My job was to present who we are and what we do to prospects and convince them to join by paying the membership dues that would in turn help fund the mission we were about. 1 John 1 reminds me of that job.

First the Apostle tells us what he saw, heard, and felt (actually touched with his hands.) John saw Jesus, heard Jesus, and touched Jesus. Jesus Christ was then, and is now, fully human. Jesus ate with John, talked with John, taught John, laughed with John, cried with John. And John, for three years or so saw, heard, and felt it all. And then he wrote about it. And he attempted to convince others of what he saw, heard, and felt in hope that they too would see the marvelous majesty of this One called the Son of God.

Most small-business owners are into their work. Their goal is to be as successful at their choice of vocation as they can be and sometimes it is to make as much money as they want as freely as they can. What hampers small business owners is unwanted and unnecessary government encroachment into their business through regulation and taxes. (Nowadays there are things called “fees”: fee is just another 3-letter word for tax.) The organization I worked for was all about reducing government intervention into the everyday operation of small businesses.

Most people on earth are into themselves. Their goal in life is to live however they want with as little intrusion by others; and to express themselves freely as they might within the cultures in which they live. What hampers most humans is the knowledge of, and the introduction to, God. The biggest issue in such discovery and meeting is the issue of sin.

Very few people on earth (who don’t already know God) will accept the issue of their own sin and when they do, most of them will have an issue with that issue. To come to know God and to find out there is an issue is a turnoff to most folk – I am who I am is kind of the normal response and, what I’ve always done is what I’ve always done. And now you tell me I a sinner!? I’m not a sinner, I’m a live-er and I live the way I’ve always lived. What is this sin thing!?

The small business owner for the most part puts up with a lot of government encroachment into his business and believes it will go away. But to tell him it’s getting worse is something he doesn’t want to hear – or think about. To tell a man who’s perfectly happy (within reasonable limits) that he’s a sinner before God – well, that just a little more than he wants to hear or think about. Not everybody joined my organization. Not everybody accepts God. Not everybody is convinced that there’s an issue of some kind or another.

Sin is something most proud individuals cannot accept, and to deny sin, is to deny God and to fool ourselves. The worst thing I can do is to fool myself that my errant behavior is acceptable to Almighty God. The worst thing I can do is to fool myself into thinking everything is going to be okay and that someday if I need to make things right with God, I’ll do it – but for now I’m happy just the way things are without a demanding, intrusive God claiming I’ve somehow sinned against Him and need to repent and ask for His forgiveness. What a fool believes, is whatever he wants. I can fool myself but I cannot fool God.