The Truth about Sin

S - Jeremiah 3:3-5, 9-10, 21-22, 24-25 (NLT): "That is why even the spring rains have failed. For you are a prostitute and are completely unashamed.  Yet you say to me, `Father, you have been my guide since the days of my youth. Surely you won't be angry about such a little thing! Surely you can forget it!' So you talk, and keep right on doing all the evil you can." … Israel treated it all so lightly--she thought nothing of committing adultery by worshiping idols made of wood and stone. So now the land has been greatly defiled. But in spite of all this, her faithless sister Judah has never sincerely returned to me. She has only pretended to be sorry," says the LORD. … Voices are heard high on the windswept mountains, the weeping and pleading of Israel's people. For they have forgotten the LORD their God and wandered far from his ways. "My wayward children," says the LORD, "come back to me, and I will heal your wayward hearts." "Yes, we will come," the people reply, "for you are the LORD our God. … From childhood we have watched as everything our ancestors worked for--their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters--was squandered on a delusion. Let us now lie down in shame and dishonor, for we and our ancestors have always sinned against the LORD our God. We have never obeyed him.""

O - How do sinners (a status all of us share) deal with sin?  How do imperfect creatures address the dilemma of sin with the perfect One? When it comes to imperfection and sin the Lord has never made it about degrees, but culture/religion and deception do. The truth is all sin produces death and destruction.  The truth is the Lord wants to forgive and heal us, save and rescue us from our sin … not just the penalties and consequences of sin but from the sin itself.  This is a miracle and requires a miracle and the Lord's work in this miracle includes by his design a critical part for us as well.  The Lord calls us all to himself the same way … via the truth and our response to him, ourselves and our neighbors is to always be based on truth - no matter how bad it makes us look, feel or how impossible any way forward may appear.  The great trouble Jeremiah identifies is NOT that Israel sinned but her tragic response to her sin; a pretend sorrow and a compromise with it. Sinners are called to address sin as sin, to come to the truth where we always meet Jesus.  There, at the truth, he enables us to not only be forgiven but to engage the process of being healed.  Grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, hope, joy are all based on truth.  For us sinners on the front end, truth looks so very formidable.  Nevertheless, it is the place we always find Jesus and he is our healing, salvation, hope and forever life.  He always starts at love, leads with mercy and then addresses the facts. He has never insisted that we be faultless but blameless.  Faultless is all about never failing and blameless is all about never failing to turn into the truth.

A - Refuse or shy away from truth and we refuse or miss all the rest. Today, and every day while it is called today, I am to be one who turns to the truth and who encourages all others to do the same.  I am not to deceive myself with degrees but to come near and stay near unto forgiveness and the healing of my heart.  This is beautiful and another expression of the Lord's relentless love and tender brilliance.  He really is tender toward us and ruthless toward our enemies.

P - Sovereign, Perfect, Almighty and All Merciful,

You are awesome! Thank you for insisting that I/we come to truth so that we may experience you, the full release of forgiveness and the hope of a healing that fulfills your promise to us … the truth will set us free.  Lord, thank you for bearing my sins twice … once in the brutality of the cross - for all time and eternity; and over so many years and failures in time and in my life.  I always find you at truth and always beginning with me at love and leading me with mercy.  You really have, and do, make all condemnation irrelevant.  Thank you for the healing which is always in your intent through the relief of forgiveness. Jesus, I admit that forgiveness with you is always instantaneous but you most often engage a process (days, weeks, months and even years) for healing.  I am, we are, in need of both.  I also admit that I have often mistaken the relief of forgiveness for the joy (unutterable and exalted) of healing unto freedom.  Thank you for always calling us to you and to freedom, to more than a tenuous co-existence with our enemies.  I am so grateful to belong to you and to be living out loud the fierce personal loyalty you give to us and deserve from us.  Thank you for forgiving and for healing.  For wanting us at all times … especially at our worst.  You are holy … not like me, not like my world, not like this earth.  I worship you!

Steve