Something Just Occurred to Me

Life is funny sometimes. I thought I had a good handle on things. Then today I realized something I had never thought of before. I had realized that I can be really stubborn and very arrogant in the ways I think about people. I grew up in a town where the people were so self righteous and boldly looked down their noses at me. My family was poor and so we were the ones that people seemed to like to pick at. I hated that treatment and I vowed somehow I didn't want to be that way. Guess what, I am here today confessing that I turned out like that anyways. People used to look down their noses at others who drank or danced or swore or did the most unspeakable things according to them. I realized that is what sin is isn't it? It is doing the most unspeakable things imaginable. I think I grew up thanking God I wasn't a drunk or a prostitute or on drugs. I realized today what all that means to God. It means I am a liar because I am all those things and more. I need to be more like the Tax Collector who pounded on his chest and cried out to God to have mercy on him because he is a sinner. When, I say that I am not a sinner, that is when God has every right to deal with me to remind me that yes I am. I am being delusional and arrogant.

I guess there are these common misconceptions I grew up with that made some sins more justifiable than others. Guess what? Sin is sin! Am I better because all I have ever done are the common lies or dishonesty or gossiping not the more horrible unacceptable sins like homosexuality, murder, or promiscuity. Not at all! God doesn't give us these levels of sins so that maybe just maybe he will excuse those "little" sinners and make the "big" sinners pay for it all. I realized today that I was the one who put Jesus on the cross. I may have not been there physically in history but I was responsible just like all of us are. God sent Jesus to die to pay the debt for all our sins. It blows my mind to accept such a gracious, merciful, loving and totally undeserved gift from God. I wasn't born when this all happened and many others weren't either but it was if time stood still and all of us were crying out for Jesus to be crucified and spitting on him and picking up the hammer to nail his pure and unblemished flesh to the cross. I now realize that because of Jesus and what I did and made Him do for me, I have no excuse but to forgive others no matter what they have done because He died for them too. It is a redemption of all of that which is totally possible in Christ alone. I know I have screwed up so many times and He keeps taking me back though I know He could easily say "no more." I realize today just exactly what Jesus did for me. I have no right to judge anyone because Jesus knows I am all those sins and more. I don't think I realize what I am capable of but God sure knows. I know now that Jesus is the only way to God. It was the highest just payment ever. Noone else could have done it but Jesus. I love Him for that. I just wonder how many times I slammed the door of heaven on someone because I thought a person didn't deserve Jesus. We all don't deserve Him. He gave of Himself fully and wholly so all of us could live. I'm so sorry Jesus that I never realized this before!

"I was a perjurer, a blasphemer, an injurious person"-no matter how men may treat me, they will never treat me with the spite and hatred with which I treated Jesus Christ! When we realize that Jesus Christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness and sin, nothing that we meet with from anyone can exhaust our determination to serve men for his sake. (My Utmost for His Highest-Oswald Chambers) That is the truth that hit close to my heart today. I therefore have no right to judge. Only God has that right! When I judge, I am playing God with other people's lives. I do not have that right no matter who I think I am. God knows me best!