Grounded and Connected

June 15, 2017

Day 163: Freed From Sin and Bad Choices:
"Because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death." —Romans 8:2

Anderson's lesson today focuses on sin and the fact that we can be freed from it if we would only turn to Jesus. It is the same lesson I've heard for many years. While reading what he had to say about the mistakes that people make, and continue to make, and how if we would only stop making those mistakes, I just kept thinking, "Why, on God's green earth, does there always need to be a discussion of sin?" I know we sin. Everyone sins; everyone makes mistakes. We know this! Whenever there is a focus on God, there is always a focus on sin and how Adam and Eve's choice to be defiant doomed us all from the beginning until the coming of Christ who saves us from ourselves and our sinful nature. ARG!

I think what I find so distasteful about these discussions is that it makes me feel worthless. There is nothing redeeming about me, about us. We are creatures of wrath who are only saved by the grace of God through the sacrifice of Jesus. True as it may be, do we need to rehash that endlessly? Instead of being partners with God and Jesus, creators in our own right, inventors, and crafters of our world, we are reduced to destructive beings who lack control, destroyers of the bond we could have had with God, ruinous and vile creatures who God can only look on if we are covered in the blood of his sacred Son.

Perhaps I am missing something. Perhaps when I was baptized, I was not washed as clean as snow. Why should I still feel so unworthy? Why should a scripture like today's bother me and remind me that I am indeed worthy of death without Christ?  Why would God create us just to condemn us in the end if we don't do just as He says?  It contradicts all that I know of what it means to love. It would seem that Christianity, as it is so often presented, is based on fear. Fear of what will happen if we sin (miss the mark), if we don't know Jesus, if we fail some test of faith, if we wander a path that other Christians deem unsuitable, if we question and doubt, if we rebel, if we lose hope... Fear.

I wish I could change this view, wipe it out forever.  When will I be able to approach the thrown of God with complete confidence?  I think I know the answer to that, but it contradicts all that I have been told of what it means to be a Christian and to know God. Here is what I believe it will take:
I need to stop reading the Bible as if it is the answer to everything. As if is the very word of God, inerrant and perfect. There, I said it.  And you know what I feel? Relief, yet still a small twinge of fear. What if I am wrong?  I just know that when I have gone to God directly, when I have approached Him as a child approaches a loving parent, trusting and believing that He will listen without expectation of perfection, I have felt closer to Him than at any other time. I have felt loved and worthy of His time as if He truly cared about what I had to say. I have felt connected to Him, a part of Him. That is how I want to feel everyday.  Grounded and connected.