Kingdom Seeker

In training

I Timothy 4:7-8 "train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come."

You are probably already thinking about getting in good physical shape as the new year approaches as well we should.  But what about spiritually?  Shouldn't this be the starting point?  Whenever we are dissatisfied with our lives in any way, we gravitate to the physical things, the things we can see.  Rarely do we make a plan for the unseen, our own souls!  Paul encouraged his protege Timothy, a young pastor in Ephesus, to train himself in godliness.  While Paul acknowledged the value of working out physically, he was much more concerned for Timothy's soul.  Isn't it strange how many of us were brought up to view the soul as something you scoop up from the reaches of hell as if it was some kind of object the size of a breadbox, some type of tangible material.  So after we come to Christ, the soul goes unattended and uncared for.  The only explanation that I can come up with is bad theology.  The sanctification process of salvation gets reduced to moral deeds to be fueled by sheer will power.  Our constant new years resolution failures should have informed us by now that we don't have what it takes to sanctify ourselves.  Phillipians 2 tells us to "work out our salvation" and "it is God who works in (us)".  So, this doesn't mean we don't participate in sanctification, it just means that our own strength (willpower) is NOT the source we draw from.
Paul tells us that godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and for the life to come!  He goes on to say we toil and strive in this training.  It makes sense that there would be work involved in training right?  Remember this, however.  There's always a motivation behind everything.   Why do we work so hard to train in godliness?  Because, Paul says, "we have our hope set on the living God"!  God himself is why we train!  It's not so we can be better people.  It's not so we will look better in the mirror.  It's not to ease our guilty consciences.  We train because we are preparing for a great wedding day where we will be wed to our Creator God who we will adore forever and where we will be supremely loved by Him! 

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Originally uploaded by rwren

There's sin in the water.

At what point are we repulsed by sin? More specifically, our own sin. It seems we are more sickened by the sins of others doesn't it?  As a matter of fact, it seems our level of repulsion is higher toward sins that are committed against us, others we love, or those we deem innocent and undeserving. 

By God's grace, we have seen the damage sin causes and are sickened by it, yet we often fail to see it in it's incubated state within our own hearts.  When we begin to contemplate the broad range of evil against humanity from shoplifting to genocide, and we feel the anger and physical nausea that arises from it, we should stop right there and attempt to view sin from God's perspective.  We should be mindful that God is repulsed by sin and not just the sins that offend us! In fact, God hates sin infinitely more than we could ever hate it. He doesn't require a public manifestation before finding it repulsive.  God sees sin in its seed form firmly planted beneath the soil of our hearts.

The inability to be repulsed by his own sin is the overwhelming characteristic of the depravity of man.   Which is not to say that he never experiences guilt, worthlessness, and emptiness, as these are the initial consequences. Even the vilest of criminals deal with these feelings without true repulsion and inevitably repeat their offenses.  Biblically, true sin-repulsion occurs in the heart that has seen the glory of Christ,  and results in a gradual recognition of  everything else as inferior.  God sees sin and rebellion in this way because He sees them as a corruption of His holiness.  It is the reason Adam and Eve were physically removed from the Garden of Eden and why everyone born since can not enter heaven unless clothed in Christ's righteousness.

Let's pretend it's the middle of the Texas summer.  It's 100 degrees and you have cotton balls forming on your tongue.  You are thirsty beyond comprehension.  Someone pours for you a tall glass of pure spring water, ice cold!  Right before you pick up the glass to drink, they add a thimble of toilet water.  They assure you not to worry, the toilet was flushed prior and the water is clean.  I'd suspect that you would prolong your thirst before ever drinking that water.  No matter how crystal clear that water appears to be, you find it difficult to remove the thought from your mind that there could be a particle of feces floating around in there somewhere. 

As crude as this illustration might sound, it offers a glimpse of how our invisible sin and hidden thoughts affect us in relation to God's holiness! God sees our sin, our condition, though veiled by our deceptive and desperately wicked hearts, as floating feces in a glass of pure water. (If you think that is crude, then you should reflect on how the scripture says God views our righteousness!)

A couple of summers ago, I had the privilege of drinking from an ice cold mountain stream in Colorado.  I'm not an environmentalist, but I pray that humanity never does anything to defile that purity.  If our mountain stream water became corrupted, the consequences would be sad, but even if the world's water supply was filtered and chemically cleaned, the loss of the utter enjoyment of drinking pure mountain spring water would be tragic!  Likewise, the greatest tragedy of Adam's sin was not the resulting curse, but rather the loss of true companionship with God!  The greatest tragedy we face in our lack of repulsion by our own sin is not the consequences of the sin, but rather the absence of pure living water!  The consequences of sin such as death, sickness, immorality, and injustice, while tragic, serve intentionally to point us to the realization of the greater tragedy!  Only when we treasure and value Christ in the light of the empty pleasures of sin, can we begin to enjoy the sparkling water of companionship with Him!

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