Love God, love people. See what God will do!

Do you think perhaps sometimes we choose to be lost? That we choose darkness over the light we’ve experienced and tasted for ourselves? I do. I think it happens all too often, and unfortunately, I don’t know that anyone is safe from this tendency. It’s this tendency that has plagued us from the very beginning, the tendency that introduced sin into the world when there was only one law.

Think about it – only one thing that God said to follow. Don’t eat from that tree. Eat from all the other trees, as much as you want. There is plenty to eat, and you’ll never run out if you just trust that God has your best interests at heart. Just don’t eat from that one in the center.

But we fell then, and we fall now for that same lie. Or set of lies. First the temptation…
“It’s not that big a deal.”
“Everyone is doing it, so it can’t be that bad.”
“God is trying to keep something good from you.”
“God will forgive you; go on ahead!” (the most sinister lies are mixed with truth)

Then, after the deed is done…
“That…was a big deal.”
“You’re the only one who struggles with this. Shame on you. How can you even call yourself a Christian?”
“Now that you’ve screwed things up royally, God is going to withhold blessings from you.”
“Do you really think God is going to forgive you…again?”

Today’s reading in Every Word with PAC was Ezekiel 16-17, where God speaks to Israel about their waywardness and straying from Him. In Ezekiel 16, particularly, God compares Israel to a whore, except that rather than accepting payment for her lewdness, she actually gives gifts to her adulterers and puts herself out there more than even a prostitute would. At the end of the chapter, though, God renews His covenant with her.

This Scripture today spoke to me in a way I’d been craving for a while. I’ve noticed that even though I’ve been pretty good with getting my reading in each day, many times it can be just in and out without really taking much effect. Also, as I mentioned the last time I was at Immerse (young adult group at PAC, meets on Wednesday nights at 7 in the Chapel), when I begin to drift in my attention to, love for and application of the Word of God, I get more lenient towards myself when it comes to sin. I can find myself becoming like Israel as described in Ezekiel 16 – moving in a direction I ought to stay away from and rationalizing it under common grace.

What really gets me, though, is that despite all the reasons God had to just throw His hands up and give up on Israel, He didn’t. And despite all my mess and your mess, He didn’t give up on us either. He went really far the other way, in fact. God be praised.

You’re never too far from the grace of God through Jesus. He’s never given up on you, and He never will.