The clear message of Matthew 7 (and Luke 6) is that only the man who lives according to Jesus’s words will stand on the day of judgment. Some people, however, have been told that once you say a prayer or walk down to an altar or even get baptized, everything thereafter is optional and you needn’t change your ways. This is glaringly unbiblical.
Think of it like this. If the Holy Spirit of God were actually living inside of you, would He be comfortable with your sins? Of course not. He’d be horrified at them! So if you aren’t horrified by your sins and earnestly desiring to change them, how can you say the Holy Spirit lives in you?
Simply put, anyone who is indifferent to sin in his own life has most certainly not been renewed by the Holy Spirit. And yet, paradoxically, only a person who has been so renewed can safely look the fullness of his sin in the face and withstand its horror because he knows his status with God is not determined by that disfigurement, but instead by the sinless perfection of Christ.
How God Views Sin
The justice of God is something most people really struggle to understand, but I think I’ve found an analogy that may help.
In baseball, we all know that a batter can fail nearly seven times out of ten and still go to the hall of fame. Even pitchers or managers can lose almost half the time and still, if they do that for long enough, go to the hall of fame. Baseball, you might say, is a sport with an extremely low threshold for greatness for everyone on the field. Everyone, that is, except for one: the umpire.
We expect umpires to be perfect. And if they make zero mistakes, they aren’t praised for it. That’s expected. But if, as often happens, they make a big one, that single error can come to define an entire umpiring career. This was the case when Jim Joyce missed the call at first to rob Armando Galarraga of baseball’s 21st perfect game last summer. Despite being widely known as a great umpire, this will likely be his legacy in baseball.
As near as I can tell, that’s how intolerant God is of sin in us.
In baseball, we all know that a batter can fail nearly seven times out of ten and still go to the hall of fame. Even pitchers or managers can lose almost half the time and still, if they do that for long enough, go to the hall of fame. Baseball, you might say, is a sport with an extremely low threshold for greatness for everyone on the field. Everyone, that is, except for one: the umpire.
We expect umpires to be perfect. And if they make zero mistakes, they aren’t praised for it. That’s expected. But if, as often happens, they make a big one, that single error can come to define an entire umpiring career. This was the case when Jim Joyce missed the call at first to rob Armando Galarraga of baseball’s 21st perfect game last summer. Despite being widely known as a great umpire, this will likely be his legacy in baseball.
As near as I can tell, that’s how intolerant God is of sin in us.
Freedom and public spaces.
One of the most challenging dilemmas for a free society is what to do with public space.
On the one hand, we want to let people have as much freedom as possible in their lives, including in public. But on the other hand, we don’t want to suffer from public areas overrun with distasteful behavior.
For instance, it’s actually quite difficult to say precisely what’s so bad about loud music, smoking, profanity, litter, and even nudity in public areas. They’re not things that do enough harm to others to categorically outlaw, which is why we allow people do them within their own homes or (possibly) in a private association.
But as a parent, I want to raise my children in an environment relatively free from these things, and we all have a stake in a publicly beautiful society. Yet this requires the cooperation of others. And if people won’t voluntarily restrain themselves in public, then laws come in; laws which preserve the public space from the polluting effects of too much poorly-used freedom in the hands of uncivilized people.
On the one hand, we want to let people have as much freedom as possible in their lives, including in public. But on the other hand, we don’t want to suffer from public areas overrun with distasteful behavior.
For instance, it’s actually quite difficult to say precisely what’s so bad about loud music, smoking, profanity, litter, and even nudity in public areas. They’re not things that do enough harm to others to categorically outlaw, which is why we allow people do them within their own homes or (possibly) in a private association.
But as a parent, I want to raise my children in an environment relatively free from these things, and we all have a stake in a publicly beautiful society. Yet this requires the cooperation of others. And if people won’t voluntarily restrain themselves in public, then laws come in; laws which preserve the public space from the polluting effects of too much poorly-used freedom in the hands of uncivilized people.
From just dating the Bible to marrying it.
Everyone who has watched a movie more than once has had the experience of seeing things you didn’t notice the first time around. Even on a third and fourth viewing, the same thing happens, and the better the movie, the more pronounced the effect.
But if you’ve ever had the opportunity to go beyond just a few viewings of some movie and see it 15 or 20 or more times, this novelty gap completely closes, but your knowledge doesn’t stop growing. Even though you aren’t really seeing new things, you start seeing the connections and elements in a whole new and richer way, an experience made possible only because you already know them all so well. As with any great art, the longer you look at it, the more beautiful it becomes.
Studying the Bible is like this, and at some point you start to really view it in a whole new way because you’re finally seeing it as a whole rather than as a very long string of pieces. When that happens, it’s like putting down a nice picture of the mountains and beholding their breathtaking majesty right in front of you.
But if you’ve ever had the opportunity to go beyond just a few viewings of some movie and see it 15 or 20 or more times, this novelty gap completely closes, but your knowledge doesn’t stop growing. Even though you aren’t really seeing new things, you start seeing the connections and elements in a whole new and richer way, an experience made possible only because you already know them all so well. As with any great art, the longer you look at it, the more beautiful it becomes.
Studying the Bible is like this, and at some point you start to really view it in a whole new way because you’re finally seeing it as a whole rather than as a very long string of pieces. When that happens, it’s like putting down a nice picture of the mountains and beholding their breathtaking majesty right in front of you.
What conclusion would you draw?
About two weeks ago, my wife was rear-ended on the highway by a drunk driver speeding. Amazingly, she was mostly unharmed. My car, however, was totaled. The entire rear end was crumpled, so badly collapsed that we couldn’t get in the trunk, not even from the rear seats inside the car.
I wasn’t sure what had been in the trunk when she was hit, so I went to the body shop to see if there was any way to get inside. Well, in the process of doing the estimate, they had to crack the rear end wide open, so it was easy to see the seriousness of the damage.
Among the things in there were many broken and bent and destroyed items, which is pretty much what I expected. What I had forgotten, however, was that I had put an old, leather-bound, oversize Bible in the trunk months ago. And in the middle of all this debris, that Bible survived without a scratch.
Now, I’m not generally one to interpret things this way, but it seemed almost like that Bible had protected the rest of the car and, far more importantly, my wife, from much worse harm. The Word of God protects us in many, and even unusual, ways.
I wasn’t sure what had been in the trunk when she was hit, so I went to the body shop to see if there was any way to get inside. Well, in the process of doing the estimate, they had to crack the rear end wide open, so it was easy to see the seriousness of the damage.
Among the things in there were many broken and bent and destroyed items, which is pretty much what I expected. What I had forgotten, however, was that I had put an old, leather-bound, oversize Bible in the trunk months ago. And in the middle of all this debris, that Bible survived without a scratch.
Now, I’m not generally one to interpret things this way, but it seemed almost like that Bible had protected the rest of the car and, far more importantly, my wife, from much worse harm. The Word of God protects us in many, and even unusual, ways.
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