Through our sunless lanes creeps Poverty with her hungry eyes, and Sin with his sodden face follows close behind her. Misery wakes us in the morning and Shame sits with us at night.
~Oscar Wilde
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Romans 8
Oh beloved, it is true.
There is an economy in this world. It is based on consumption. But the deeper issue is that the consumption is not just us using things up, it is the things, and the drive for wanting them, that eats us up.
There is also a Kingdom in this world, that is not of this world. It is advancing, and there really is no stopping it in the long run. It will have no end. And this Kingdom will swallow up all the things that we ever thought we wanted.
But this problem. Our poverty.
This poverty, our sin; this falling short that promises to bring us what we desire. We think that giving ourselves what we think we want will make us grow large and give us strength. However, instead of expanding our horizons, our rebellion narrows our options to but a few things.
Actually, in falling short, in letting ourselves fall into the things that will kill us, we even live out of the smaller parts of our brain. The primitive centers that drive our lust, and the frontal lobe that minimizes the long-term impact of our behaviors, cut short the more intuitive and deeper understanding parietal and temporal lobes.
And all of this makes our lives so small. We go on a quest of diminishing return; each little drip of pleasure becoming more and more diluted and the satisfaction in our lives dissipates into a shallow puddle of wishing we could live free again.
Can we see it?
Our sin does not give us what we ask for. Our sin starves us to death. Our sin takes us further away from the One Who could ever feed us in the first place. However, the problem is not merely one of an individual’s life not reaching its potential.
No, it is much worse.
The Kingdom of G_d will most surely conquer the failures and hatred of men. However, the conquering that is taking place is not a kind of ‘takeover’ that will simply install a new administer in the land and allow dark things to happen under the radar.
However, people will have the choice to be in this Kingdom or not. And many of the people who could be there, won’t, if we do not go out and share His Life and invitation. Said more simply: our sin does not just damn us to misery, and possibly hell. No, our sin has the potential to impact millions, even billions of others, and jam up the works of righteousness, joy and peace that flow from living under The Holy Spirit’s guidance.
So, are you struggling with sin? It happens for each of us. However, the great lie we can often fall into is that our sin happens in a vacuum. It doesn’t. Our sin has eternal consequences for and eternal Kingdom. Would that we would all see it for what is: sin is a force for eternal poverty.
Tonight is your night. Time to live rich.
True have his promises been; not one has failed. I want none beside him. In life he is my life, and in death he shall be the death of death; in poverty, Christ is my riches; in sickness, he makes my bed; in darkness, he is my star, and in brightness, he is my sin; he is the manna of the camp in the wilderness, and he shall be the new corn of the host when they come to Canaan. Jesus is to me all grace and no wrath, all truth and no falsehood; and of truth and grace he is full, infinitely full.
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
