Monday, June 8, 2020
Sin Consumes One’s Soul
and All Creation Around
Isaiah 40:2
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
Romans 8:21
Also the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
Words of Grace For Today
With Climate change, the population density, encroachment on wild habitat, close proximity with other animals, and our ability to move around the globe … we humans have put a huge stress on the earth … and
there are few people who could not well imagine that today creation itself needs to be set free from its bondage to decay, the rate of which we’ve increased.
More than wallow in dismay, we count our blessings:
With Covid 19 the earth has received a reprieve. Now if we can just continue to provide a reprieve as we re-launch back to …
well whatever it is that we will get to, I’m not so sure it is ‘back to’ what it used to be, not anymore. Therein lies a small window for something to change for the better.
We also have been into the wildernesses, the National Parks and remote areas where few if any other humans have tread, and we have drunk in the splendour and wonders God provides in creation.
Our sins … They may well say that our sins are catching up with us and that we will serve a sentence many times what our sins deserve.
I’ve never believed terrible things happened to us to punish us for our sins. There is plenty of pain and misery that we bring on ourselves directly caused by us doing evil things. God, though, does not met out punishment. If that were the case then God would not be judging with equity and with righteousness, for some terribly evil people, who have done more evil than millions of people put together, seem to reap rewards instead of punishment for their sins.
So Israel was in exile, and one common way to explain that was to say that God was punishing her for her sins.
And what can we say we suffer today because of our sins? Shall we say Covid 19 is punishment for our sins? The people dying, the people paying the greatest cost, are not the ones benefiting most from the things that destroy the earth and other people in order to make life more comfortable for the few.
Rather it is the other way around. The rich feel the pinch of Covid 19 restrictions the least, while the poor are pushed to and over the brink of death.
That said: sin and there are costly consequences, whether it shows or not in this lifetime. Sin eats at one’s soul until one is forgiven, and one embarks on a renewed life guided by the Holy Spirit.
As Covid 19 restrictions are eased in many places, as here, we may well sing softly (humming is allowed) of the greatness of God’s blessings, and cry at the release from what may have seemed to be prisons of isolation. Indeed we look forward to the possibility that God may bless us in the days ahead, that we may be a blessing to other people.