passing on

Recently, I have been working through the book, "Truefaced" written by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch.

This book is a light shining for all the weary wanderers who have no idea what God wants from them and their efforts have been exhausted.  How do we please God?  How do we draw near to Him? How do we hide ourselves deep in the refuge of His Presence while we are so overwhelmed by our sins and their persistent presence?

I began reading this book because my friend wanted to go through it and so I reluctantly decided it would be good.  I had no idea what to expect and was joking with another friend that I did not want the floodgates of my "issues" to come out as I was very comfortable with the dam holding me together.

My expectations going into the book were "someone digging deep into my life with no resolution except the kind, but sometimes unhelpful, words of 'Jesus loves you'."  I feel terrible that those words have become somewhat unhelpful in my life but as I continued reading I found a paragraph that rocked my heart.

The authors write, Many Christians know God loves us and wants to be with us, but we also believe our sin has put an impossible mass between God and us.  We understand that Jesus has made a way for us to one day be together in heaven, but right now- until we get better, do better or start to take things seriously- we believe we'll have to settle for rare moments of intimacy with him.  We know ourselves too well, and there is no way we're ever going to be able to keep from sinning.  We believe God loves us, but we also believe he's pretty disappointed with us.  We expect to see him someday, but for now we can only hope that some days we will feel his touch on our lives.  That's as good as it gets on this earth... or so we've come to believe. (pg. 65)

And it hit me.  Jesus is not standing on the other side of the mass.  The book goes on to explain that God doesn't stand on the other side of our sin waiting for us to get it together.  Instead, God stands next to us, with our sin in front of us wanting to work on our sin together.

I don't know about you but that takes a lot of pressure and guilt off my shoulders.

God is not expecting us to work on our sin, to finish our sin... God knows that is impossible.  We cannot manage our sin ourselves.  God wants us.... wants me to instead entrust my entire self with Him and work on my sin together.

God wants me to come out of hiding and embrace His forgiveness and love.  The book of Jeremiah says we were created to cling.  To be dependent.  We were created to depend on Jesus, not to live this life alone.

Aren't you tired of trying to fix yourself on your own?  I know I am.  I'm no good at managing my sin and being a better person.  I've got to get back to my roots... I was created to be dependent.

I hope this is encouraging to you. I really just wanted to pass on the good news that was given to me.  God truly does not stand condemning us.  At the time we come to recognize Him as Lord and every day, every moment thereafter! 

Be encouraged my beloved friends.