Tuesday, May 19, 2020
As Our Sin Perverts our Spirits
Yet God Takes Delight
Only in our Turning Back
to God.
Ezekiel 33:11
Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, Ohouse of Israel?
Luke 19:8
Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’
Words of Grace For Today
Amazing Grace that saved wretches like us, though we did not deserve anything good from God!
Why does God choose to save such wretches?
Because God lives and has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but eagerly waits for the wicked wretches to turn from their evil ways that produce nothing but death. Instead God desires the wicked to turn from their evil ways and live!
There are obvious wicked ways and not so obvious ways, ways wherein we may even deceive ourselves into thinking the way we proceed is not evil. Evil remains evil. It robs life from us and all around us. This is not the end-of-physical-life death. This is the many little deaths of our spirit that we suffer until there is nothing left of us as creatures of God, though we continue to walk and haunt and destroy the earth with our terrible ways.
Sometimes turning from our evil ways, which have netted us great ‘security’ in power, wealth and reputation, will cost us more than it ever netted us in the first place.
Zacchaeus was a tax collector who only made money when he cheated people by collecting more taxes than he had to pay to Rome. Whatever difference he collected was his to keep as his own. Here he will return half of everything he has to the poor. Then as he defrauded everyone out of their money which really was not due for taxes, he will return to them fourfold what he stole from them. Either he will not be able to …. He will be broke long before he repays everyone. OR There is a new definition of fraud.
We play these games often, telling ourselves that what we do is not sinful Rather we redefine sin to exclude what we do, and include what others do, so that we can condemn them and feel ‘good’ about ourselves. It only works if we are very self-deluded. We always know our own lies.
Still, God wants us to take time for the amendment of our lives … to change our lives for the better (measured by our Creator’s intention for us.)
That shift, that transformation, that redirection of our lives is what God hopes for from all of us.
Covid 19 gives us the opportunity to reflect more honestly on what we have measured our living by, and to adjust it to fit our Creator’s intention for us more closely.
It can feel like a losing battle, finding our Creator’s intention for us ….
We have no real excuse, though. For Jesus has shown us God’s will for us.
We often do not like it.
But we know what it is … and doing it will give us life, and life abundant.
Only a fool would pass up that opportunity.
Still God rescues the fool along with the rest of us wretched sinners.
Thanks be to God.