09.17.12
(Somewhere in 1 John 1 between vvs 5-10) If we refuse to
admit that we are sinners, then we live in a world of illusion and truth
becomes a stranger to us. JBP
It is fully believable that people can become strangers
to us. People in our own families can become strange, because we just don’t know
them. We know of them and get the
occasional greetings of birthday wishes or “Happy Holidays”, but we don’t know them, because time and distance
have removed them to what might be a remote
relationship and they just live their lives and we just live ours.
I used to think relatives were a treat we got to enjoy
every time my family moved across country; we’d stop in at the cousin’s and
hang out for a few days with them and see how they lived, and eat a lot of food
and ice cream, and sleep in strange beds, and watch the our parents laugh about
the past. But over time they became strangers to me because I never saw them
and their lives changed from those days of yore.
Sometimes the stranger at home is our child: he goes his
way, we go ours and our paths rarely cross unless there is food or money
involved. Sometimes the stranger is our spouse – someone we pledge our love and
devotion to on a fine early summer afternoon (or whenever) and then we proceed
to live separate lives with separate interests and separate friends. And sometimes
the Stranger lives in Heaven. We know about Him and even call Him ours, but we
don’t walk with Him or try to learn what pleases Him or what He might expect
from us. We live in a world of illusion and He becomes a stranger to us.
John wrote that we have to come to terms with who we are
in order to come to terms with Who God is. John knew who God was and what He
was up to. John spent time with God the Son, and lived with Him for three and a
half years. The when Jesus went home to Heaven, He sent the Spirit who came to
dwell in John’s heart forever. And the more John came to terms with who he was
the more he knew God as He is.
And part of coming to terms with who I am is admitting
who I am: a sinner. Now here’s the tricky part: just because I admit I am a
sinner doesn’t mean God isn’t working in my life – no, it means I know that in
my present condition I need God desperately to help me work through who I am,
what I’ve done, and where I’m going. God looks at me as His son. God knows my
faults, fractures, failures, and frailty, but He accepts me as I am because I
accept Him for Who He is. I just need to know what my capacity is so that I
remember how much I need God.
To deny my capacity for sin is to disrupt my relationship
with God. But to accept who I am frees me to accept Who He is, and we walk
together in that truth. Otherwise, truth becomes a stranger to me. And God
becomes a stranger to me. Denying who I am is tantamount to calling God a liar
and that is unbelief at its zenith. But walking in the light of that truth
(that I am a sinner) as He is in the light of that truth (that He is God and I
need Him) makes for true fellowship together with Him and truth becomes my
dearest friend, and God becomes my very heart.
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