More thoughts on being forgiveness-conscious

I’m still thinking about sin-consciousness and forgiveness-consciousness. I’m thinking of a drama team we once developed in a Church. We were encouraged by some there to act out messages of guilt so that people might be shamed into some kind of a conviction. Yikes!

Several of us questioned this tactic as manipulative and wrong but couldn’t make much headway. It seems like sin-consciousness has been purported as the way to bring about holiness. I don’t agree. In 1 Peter 1:5-9 it talks about adding to your faith virtue, knowledge, self-control and the like but the conclusion in verse nine is interesting. It says, “For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.” So could it be that what drives our desire for holiness isn’t the knowledge of our sins but the knowledge of our forgiveness?

From a parent’s perspective that makes total sense. Children thrive when, even in correction, you keep in mind who they are as individuals. Children know their flaws, what they need is a way out in spite of them. For instance, I have a son who can not learn sitting still. (that doesn’t mean he is ADD, it means he is a kinetic learner. He learns by doing not so much by looking or listening.) I used to try to teach him spelling the way I was taught (which didn’t work for me btw). My son is super smart but he could never get the spelling of words to stick. He was frustrated, I was frustrated… but telling him he was a lousy speller and that he needed to do better would not have helped. Instead we looked for new ways to understand spelling. I told him he was very smart (because he is) and there must be a way to get that stuff in there in a way where it would stick. In the process we learned he needed to pace or wiggle in order to learn.

My son didn’t need to be told he was inadequate. He was very clear that he missed the mark in spelling. He needed to be given a way out of his inadequacies. When given that way out, he flourished in spelling along with every aspect of learning.

Knowing that I am forgiven, gives me the courage to risk.

Junk mail, taxes and freedom

But I am celebrating today because I am almost done with my part of the taxes and that is truly a miracle!!! I suck at paperwork! It’s the whole formaphobia thing :/ . Bringing that to order has been a huge job.

Though I have dropped putting my list up I am still watching God bring my life to order. This is a huge step in that direction. I have gone beyond getting the paperwork done for taxes (I am almost there) but I also got all of this years paperwork organized too. I am still facing a small pile of things I need to add up and get organized but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (and it’s not a train w00t!) and there is so much less of a mess in here.

Junk mail drives me crazy! It’s like an everyday attack of chaos and disorder. I have gotten to where I no longer take the junk mail out of my box every day, I’m sure it’s not pleasing my mail carrier but I don’t want all this junk in my mail box! I didn’t ask for it. I wait until I have the energy to go through it and drop what isn’t important and isn’t risky in the recycle bin before I even get in the house.

I am still mulling over the idea of being forgiveness-conscious instead of sin-conscious. I am finding that many believe it is important to be sin-conscious, like it is how to stay humble before the LORD. Gosh, the picture I have of being sin-conscious is coming up to God like a little whipped puppy who is so frightened of impending doom that his little tail is tucked deeply under his belly and pee is leaking uncontrollably down his quivering little legs. This can’t be God’s intent us! He calls us of more worth than many sparrows, the apple of His eye, and very good”

As I say that I am remembering a line to a song that says, “Sin can not be your master, for we are not under law but under grace.” I wonder… are we mastered by sin when we sin or are we mastered by it when we carry the shame of it around our necks like the “Scarlet Letter”? Or is there really any difference between the two? I believe that if we are forgiveness-conscious we will stop sulking around and start walking free… That doesn’t make me anxious to sin it frees me up to see beyond myself.

Taking Sin and Grace out of Church Speak (part two) The root of defeat, the antidote and bicycle riding :)

I’m still reading that Joseph Prince’s book. It’s full of good stuff… and stuff that I question. I think I am pretty good at throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Maybe that’s an old saying ey? It means that I throw out the whole message because there is something in it that I disagree with. That’s sad. I wonder if that comes from damage (listening) hmmm there is something hurtful to someone who is truth based when you tell, or imply that the teacher is always right. That doesn’t give permission to say that a good teacher can be wrong sometimes. Or that you can think for yourself, go over the message and dig out the nuggets without swallowing the whole pan full.

Back to the book, and still thinking of sin and grace. Joseph talks about being sin- conscious vs. forgiveness- conscious. He says many Christians are living out their lives sin-conscience… In other words we are still walking around fully aware of, and brutalized by, our inadequacies. It’s almost like we have built our faith around our inadequacies instead of the antidote. That puts words to things I have been trying a long time to put words to. He says further that being sin- conscious sends down a vicious root of condemnation in our lives out of which we can not thrive as believers. I totally get that.

The cure, the antidote is understanding our rescue. In every way we are inadequate Jesus intervened. In every way that we missed the mark, Jesus won the prize and then gave it to us. In Jesus, there is no missing the mark… period. If we get that, really get that? Then we can walk around forgiveness-conscious. Thinking not of how we don’t measure up but of why we do! That is what the word grace means to me… it’s like pushing the back of my kid’s bicycle so that they can ride it without falling. They are riding the bicycle they are being successful I am giving that success to them and having a ball in the process! I see Jesus in that light. He delights in keeping us upright while we flounder in the right direction. :)