The Lord loves all people, but He loves those who seek Him even more. To his chosen ones the Lord gives such great grace that for love they forsake the whole earth, the whole world, and their souls burn with desire that all people might be saved and see the glory of the Lord.
~St. Silouan the Athonite
Thus says the Lord: You say, “The Lord’s way is not fair!” Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair? When someone virtuous turns away from virtue to commit iniquity, and dies, it is because of the iniquity he committed that he must die. But if he turns from the wickedness he has committed, he does what is right and just, he shall preserve his life; since he has turned away from all the sins that he has committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die.
~ from Ezekiel 18
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in 1 Corinthians 1
Oh beloved, it is true.
Sin will kill us. And, if we keep on keeping on with it, it will end us. Choosing to do our own thing; to try and eek out the little milliseconds of our own pleasure, not only robs us of eternal joy – but damns our frames to sickness, depression and death.
Everything seeks a balance in the universe. The Law of karma is in place. We will reap what we sow. We will receive the payment for our selfish approach to things. If we intentionally turn away from the path He has set before us, we really are in deep trouble.
Bottom line. Sin and iniquity is a very big deal. And without a solution, we are damned.
Enter the cross.
The cross is the craziest, and most potent thing G_d has ever done in His interface with humanity.
Can we see it?
All the way through His Word, we see that G_d even laughs at the futile attempts of nations. They may spout and spit, but He will have his way in the geopolitics of this globe. This gives us a picture of the incredible power of G_d. He is indeed Almighty.
But, there is something else much more potent that the potentates of this world. And this is the soul of an individual. We can be harder than the hardest stone. Our rebellion knows no bounds. And without the infinite resources available to an infinite Holy Spirit, we would stay our course to destruction.
And this is where the scandal begins. It really is not fair. We should be on our way to the hell we have desired by our actions. Somehow, underneath all of the minimizations and rationalizations we have always known that evil is just plain evil. There is nothing good in our ways.
But G_d.
The Cross is the place where an Infinite Member of The Triunity met the force of our evil, and bore the wrath of our Father. In His death, He swallowed the bitter ocean of our vile spew, and processed it into a miraculous righteousness. He, in The Cross turned the universe upside down. He took on Death, and crushed it, not to death – but all the way down through that process – and back up into a Life that will never end. Said more simply: Jesus crushed death all the way into Life.
It’s so unfair! We should be going our own way, and falling off into destruction. But now, by simply turning away from our former path of selfish ambition, we are drawn into the same Vortex of Love that crushed death, paid for my sins, and gave me eternal life in exchange.
So, are you on a path to destruction? It can happen. This fool of a writer has flirted with it far too many times in his own life. However, there is no need to stay this course. It is fair enough. If you want to die in your sins, His Love will allow you to do it. However, if you want to be part of a scandalous way out of your problem, all you need do is change your mind and turn to Him.
Tonight is your night. Enjoy a scandal that brings Eternal Life in Him.
The expression of Christian character is not good doing, but God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian is that the supernatural is made natural in him by the grace of God, and the experience of this works out in the practical details of life, not in times of communion with God.
~Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
