Why do we tolerate our sin?

So, I definitely didn't expect another Facebook note to come in consecutive days, but God absolutely blasted me last night and I can't help but let my fingers rage across this keyboard in order to get this down.

Last night at halftime of the Eagles' game, me and 3 other friends decided to take a Sheetz run. We got our food and got back in the car. Just as we did that, a lady in a minivan pulls into the parking space beside us, almost hitting my car as she pulls in. She was probably about 55-65 years old with a cigarette in one hand and a little runt of a lap dog climbing all over her steering wheel. She motioned for my friend to roll down the passenger's side window, and she asked "are you all from Messiah??" Thinking she liked Messiah students (and 1 alumnus), we all said yes with smiles on our faces. She says "oh ok," and then pauses for a few seconds and says, "so which one of you jokers knocked down the cigarette dispenser by the door?" Now something you should know about me...I'm the son of a retired sheriff's deputy. My dad is a rather quiet man, but absolutely commands respect, and he'll show respect to people that also show him respect. I definitely inherit that from him...my friends may poke fun at me from time to time, but I don't tolerate being talked down to or being labelled as the typical "college kid". So when I heard "jokers", I could feel an inferno burning inside of me that had a strong possibility of coming out had my friends not been in the car with me (2 of them being ladies). So we exchanged a few words and she gave us a brief apology after she realized that it wasn't us. But I never officially got to say my peace, so with my temper still intact I ripped out of the parking lot with my friends in the car, saying a few words under my breath which weren't curses, but might as well have been with the angry thoughts I was having. Unacceptable.

On my ride home last night, God got to me. Our sermon in church yesterday was about guarding our thoughts and how our thoughts can be a sin against God if we're not keeping track of them. To quote the pastor, we don't think about thinking. This was based out of Philippians 4, focusing on verses 8-9, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you." I considered this and realized that even though I may not have fully lost my temper, my thoughts against that lady were NOT God-honoring. If I truly claim to stand for God and strive to fulfill the mission given to me in Matthew 28, then I failed my mission miserably tonight because that lady saw no part of God in me. And at what cost? So that I could have the last word? If I truly thought of God first before myself, I could've got out of the car and picked up the cigarette dispenser in question. Think she would've saw God then? I certainly do.

God broke me. He tore down my walls tonight as I drove home, and I confessed my sin in the car and asked for God's forgiveness. And as the famous promise goes in 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." But it wasn't enough to just confess my sins and act like everything was great and happy after that, I wanted my friends' forgiveness too, so I took a hard face of humility and apologized to each of them as well. I don't find it acceptable to give in to our sins the way that I did to that lady.

Which brings me to my point...why do we tolerate our sin? I'm sure most people that read this would say that I'm overreacting about the whole thing. I mean, really? Apologizing to my friends even though they probably moved on by now and probably didn't see anything I did wrong? I mean, it wasn't THAT bad, right? Well friends, yes it IS that bad. I'm hard on myself...I hold myself to a much higher standard than most people do, a standard that I believe God established. Consider the Ten Commandments...they're not called the Ten things-you-should-try-to-keep-as-best-as-you-can. They're called the Ten COMMANDMENTS. It's the Law...keep these commands or die. You can't just say "oops, I forgot about the Sabbath day. Oh well, I'll try again next week. Oh but that's not a good time for it...I have tons of work I need to get done." God wouldn't have commanded it if it wasn't meant to be kept. Yet we look at this one and consider it a lesser commandment. Now murder, that's a REALLY bad one...we should NEVER do that. Murder and rape is no worse than forgetting to keep your Sabbath day holy. If anything, forgetting the Sabbath is worse than murder (keeping the Sabbath holy is #4 on the list...murder is #6). Yet we tolerate this as if nothing's wrong. Why?

I spent a lot of time thinking about my future wife on my car ride home tonight. I thought about her in terms of my temper. I understand that she will have her own sins that she deals with and I will have mine. But why should she "settle" for that? I think of experiences I had with my past girlfriends, and I remember times where I would mess up on something and tell her that I'm sorry. A typical response is, "It's ok. I still love you despite what you did. It's no big deal." And this would bring a smile to my face, as I would think "WHEW! I'm glad that's over. She loves me...I don't have to do any more work." And with that I wouldn't change, I wouldn't work, and I'd end up sinning some time later. I don't think that's acceptable. My future wife deserves the absolute best from me every day, and that involves me not giving in to my temper or other sins. I don't want her to just "settle" for my shortcomings. I want to "wow" her daily by showing her that through my unwavering faith in God, I can overcome anything. THAT'S strength. THAT'S the honorable way. There's no reason she should deserve anything less from me. And neither should God.

There's another thing that's been bugging me recently, and that's how absolutely numb we've become to the gospel. If you weren't reading this I'd ask you to close your eyes, but just imagine this scenario. Imagine that you're face to face with a man in a ski mask pointing a pistol at your head. Obviously you're scared...you don't want to die. This guy is a madman, and he's getting ready to pull the trigger as you're begging for your life. Now imagine your best friend. Out of nowhere, your best friend, that guy/girl that you've grown up with and has been with you through thick and thin, pushes you out of the way as the man's bullet goes flying through their skull. Your absolute best friend saved your life, and now he/she is lying dead in a massive puddle of blood. I know this is graphic and something no one wants to think about, but if this actually happened, wouldn't that change your life forever? Wouldn't you always think about the sacrifice they made for you, and wouldn't you likely make a vow to never forget them and live on their behalf? It would absolutely destroy you inside. But there was a reason I made this graphic and painful to think about: THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. How many of us consider Jesus our best friend? How many of us thank Jesus daily for dying on the cross for our sins, and how many of us say it in a prayer in those exact nonchalant words? Let me hit you with a few facts. First of all, Jesus was a real man...as real as the person in the next room over from you. Second, Jesus lived his life for 30 some years, facing many of the same temptations we face in our lives, so He knows what we go through. Third, Jesus died what is arguably one of most gruesome deaths in all of history after living a completely sinless life. This man was whipped and had patches of skin taken clean off his body. This man had 5-inch thorns shoved into his skull. This man had his beard pulled out at the roots as he screamed one of the most agonizing screams in history. He died so severely because He loved us so much that He would face the fires of Hell on our behalf. Yet we stand in church and sing our "Jesus Loves Me" songs, and barely realize what Jesus truly did for us. And every time we sin, we spit in the face of the agonizing death He went through. "Thanks Jesus, that was cool of you to do and all. And my bad for yelling at that car that cut me off the other day...that probably wasn't nice of me." No, that wasn't just "cool of him to do". We can't afford to undermine what Jesus went through, nor should we. Yet we live our life as if Jesus never existed...as if a little bit of sin doesn't matter. So I pose my question again...WHY do we tolerate our sin????

Friends, dare to hold yourself to a higher standard. Every sin we commit spits in the face of the God that gave us life. Every sin we commit spits in the face of Jesus, the man who lived a perfect life and sacrificed his LIFE out of unconditional love for us. We don't deserve such love. But I know we're going still sin. We've lived in sin for so long, and in this world it's impossible to truly break free from it's bonds. Yet Jesus still volunteers His perfect help to us in Matthew 11:28-30, "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." With Jesus' help and love, we CAN break free from the bondage of sin. He calls us in Matthew 5:48 to "be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." We're not going to be perfect, but we must strive for this ideal in order to stay as far from sin as possible. Even in small amounts, sin is not to be tolerated. The only thing we should tolerate is the full passionate pursuit of the arms of the God that loves us. God doesn't tolerate sin...why should we?


Before I began this, I prayed that God would use this to change someone's life. Please don't consider this my note, but consider it the words that God gave me to write. If you find this to hit home for you, don't credit me...credit God. He's waiting with open arms for us to come to Him, so we have a choice to make. Either continue to live in our ignorantly blissful state of sin, or run to the loving arms of God. I pray you choose God.

Finding blessings through trials

My apologizes, I didn't expect this to be this long...but I would really appreciate those who see this to read it...there's definitely a good application at the end of it.

Trials. Struggles. Let's face it, they suck and we don't like having to deal with them, but because of our broken world we're forced to endure them until God calls us home. But if we look at it correctly and deal with them correctly, we have a great potential to see God more clearly than we would in easier times. By His grace, I had that opportunity today.

The last few days have definitely been rather up and down. Wednesday I saw a job posted online that I actually applied for previously, but since it was reposted I applied again. Thursday I gave the company a call to, more or less, force the issue. The lady I talked to asked me to come in for an interview at 9:00am the next morning. Friday I went in for the interview and went home shortly after, and about 3 hours later I got a call with the official job offer. Cool! So of course...I'm happy at this point, as I'm sure anyone would be.

Friday night rolls around...my parents had been working outside all day. We went out to dinner, and the whole time my mom kept complaining about how bad her finger hurt. It was swollen, and it just looked like she jammed it or something. Plus, my mom has a comically low pain tolerance, so I was just saying "Mom, you're FINE! Just stick some ice on it and deal with it." So we get back, and at about 10:00 my parents come in my room and tell me they're going to the hospital to have her finger looked it. Wow...ok. Still didn't think too much of it. I get another call around midnight telling me that they're keeping my mom at the hospital because they're worried it could be a bacterial infection and they're worried that it could possibly be serious. Wait....what? It's just a finger! My heart sank...I didn't want my mom to be at the hospital and I didn't want anything to be wrong, and I was obviously helpless to do anything about it. I went to bed fairly bummed out.

Saturday...yay snow!!!! Except not really. While facebook statuses explode about the snow, all I could think of was "Great...my mom's still in the hospital and now I'm probably not going to get to visit her." Plus, I just wanted to have a lazy day at home and watch a movie or something, but all I could think about was my mom. Well, my dad was planning on going to visit her anyway, and my first temptation was just to stay at home because I didn't feel like going out. Wow...how selfish am I. But God got to me...I knew my mom would be happy to see me and I knew it would be right to make a sacrifice on her behalf (since she's made basically a whole life's worth of sacrifices for me), so I went along. My mom's doing better even though her finger's still the size of a corn dog, but we think it was something that could've turned serious if we didn't catch it in an early stage. So I'm definitely thankful for that.

"Using trials as blessings"...I haven't really gotten to my point yet, but i'm working on it. :) The trial I'm speaking of isn't my mom's finger, although it's part of it. I haven't really told anyone about my mom being in the hospital right now because, as bad as this sounds, I don't really want to hear "I'll pray for her!" My first thought is, what exactly are you going to pray for? For her to get better and recover quickly? Well...what if God decides to answer that with "Sorry, not this time." What then? It's just a thing of mine...I typically don't like praying for such temporal things because ironically I almost feel a disconnect from God when I pray something like that. "Dear God, I want so-and-so to feel better. Make it happen? Thanks, cya next time." No, that's what I wanted. I wanted to know what God was doing. I knew God was trying to send me a message...I wanted to know what it was. And I also knew it wouldn't just be given to me...I had to go find it.

We finally got home from the hospital at around 4:30 today, and I did something rather radical and completely illogical. "Dad, I'm going out for a bike ride." He looked at me like I sprouted 5 heads. He just laughed and said have fun...I didn't want to tell him exactly what I was doing, this was between me and God. So I set out. There's a nice 3-mile loop that starts and ends at my house, and 1 mile into it there's a field and a pavilion where I often go to pray, so I fought my way through the cold and the snow to the pavilion. The air was a little thinner and I was fasting while I did this...I only had a small slice of pizza and was hungry, but I waited to eat in an effort to connect with God more effectively.

My mom and I haven't had the best relationship over the years. We think very differently and get impatient with each other from time to time. For a long time I just used this as an excuse to not do anything about it, dismissing it to "it's just the way it is." Honor thy father has always been easy for me...the second part of the commandment was always very difficult for me. So as weird as it sounds, I couldn't understand why this issue was bothering me so much. I mean yes, I love my mom, but I think I felt like I loved her because I had to, which I see now is the wrong way to think and live. So down at the pavilion, no one's around and I'm free to speak out loud. So I start to ask God what the heck He was doing...why was this bothering me so much...why did You call me out here? I waited briefly, and then a message hit me like a brick:

"Are you man enough to save your relationship with your mother?"

Save. Not fix. Not try harder. SAVE. Wow...am I really in that much danger? I don't want that...I've always wanted a better relationship with my mom but I just wanted it to happen, I never really worked for it. So I answered:

"Yes God, I am."

"Prove it."

Call it hairbrained, call it what you want, judge me if you want, I don't care. This is a message I got from God and I believe it. But even after that, I got a little bit more:

"Go the back way back to your house. Keep pedaling the whole time. Drop gear if you must, but don't stop pedaling."

Typically when I ride my bike, I go to that pavilion and go back home the way I came. The back way is a much harder path...it's a nice coast downhill for about the first mile, but then as I turn onto my road it goes into another downhill, and up an extremely steep hill for about 1/8 of a mile. I live near mountains, my friend...this isn't your typical Mechanicsburg hill, these are Halifax hills. And although I'm an athlete, endurance is NOT my thing. But it all became clear...God was telling me to prove myself. Prove I was willing to work. Prove I was willing to fight for it. Prove it.

There's actually an incline coming out of the pavilion, so I had to battle that first and that took a lot of my energy, but then I got to coast through the downhill. Then as I got to my road, I said a prayer and started. I only dropped one gear to get through the pavilion uphill, and almost to my own surprise, I watched as my fingers increased my bike to top gear going into the death hill. I kept pedaling through the pain...my feet and hands were numb, and I was literally yelling with every pedal I took.

"Prove it."

I got about 3/4 of the way up the hill in top gear. I tried pedaling one more time, and my quads gave out on me and I collapsed off to the side of the road. I had no choice but to walk the rest of the way, with my knees giving out with every step I took. Feeling like I failed for not making it the whole way, I heard from God again: "You didn't stop pedaling. Well done." That was cool.

"Chris, are you closing this note out any time in the near future?" :) Yes, I'm almost there.

God is so mysterious that we don't recognize what He's doing most of the time. If my mom hadn't gone to the hospital, I wouldn't be writing this note. I wouldn't have gone on my psycho bike ride. I wouldn't have seen God better. I found it really interesting how the path of my bike ride was actually indicative of my last few days. The first part of my bike ride was fairly easy...tiring, but definitely easy. Much like the first few days since Wednesday, found a job online, got an interview, got the job. Then as I left the pavilion on my ride, I knew a trial was coming: the hill. It was a challenge I knew I had to face and not back down from. My mom being in the hospital is like this hill. I knew our relationship wasn't the best, but it was revealed to me how much I actually DO care about my mom and how different my life would be without her. And as simple of an injury as this is, it shows me that her years are winding down, and I'm not going to have much time left with her. So I can't just expect things to get better, I have to work at it and fight for it, much like I did against that hill. God showed me a blueprint of what I need to do, and I need to do it. My mom's also a bit of a workaholic, so she gets a little time off through being in the hospital. God managed to kill two birds with one stone through swelling up my mom's ring finger. Wow.

Why does James say that we should consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds? Trials are...trials. They suck! But James says that the testing of our faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that we may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. I know I'm guilty of this, but I think we often quote this passage (James 1:2-4) and we leave out verse 4. I always think that I'm a man of very strong faith, so I shouldn't be facing so many trials. But perseverance has to finish it's work so that it's mature and complete, and I'm not there yet. I know the question is asked so often why God allows suffering to happen in the world if He's such a good God. Would our faith be mature and complete otherwise? Experience is probably the best teacher that we have on earth...God gives us trials and asks us to learn from them. And the trials are going to be hard, but James 1:12 says "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him." And this isn't a crown that we're gonna see in this life, but the next. And THAT'S what it's about. Our final and greatest blessing is waiting for us after we leave this place and go home. But I believe that we have to do our part while we're here. God asked us to do work here no matter how hard, and He promises us a pretty amazing reward when we're done. We live in a broken world...that's just the way it is. But God's building us a new home that is nothing short of perfect, and that's what we're living for and straining for. Trials here are going to be hard, but they're necessary. They give us an opportunity to love the One that deserves all of our attention anyway. I know I wouldn't give Him my full attention if things were good all the time, and I sincerely doubt that YOU would either. God sees our plan in full view and He's always working for the best in our lives. So if He decides to use a trial, look for the lesson behind it. Take pride and comfort in the fact that God is making us stronger (But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. - Job 23:10). Look for the opportunity to know God at a deeper level, because God's not going to magically drop it in our lap. We're not going to find God sitting on our comfortable furniture...we're going to find Him in a bike ride through a snowstorm.