Thursday, August 20, 2009

Tell Me Who You Are, Pt. 2

If you had one opportunity to tell me who you are, what would you say? I wonder if we communicate this--the only message worth communicating with our lives--nearly enough:


This world system doesn’t work. At all.

Corruption has seeped into every government the planet. Slavery is booming across the world. Kids aren’t just starving in Africa; they’re starving in your hometown. Look hard enough outside yourself, and you’ll see suffering on every streetcorner.

Yet these things aren’t the problem.

These are only symptoms of the pervasive problem: human depravity.

Sin is smeared across each one of us. We’ve all lied at least once. We’ve jumped at the invitation to lust. While we haven’t all murdered or masterminded concentration camps, we’ve hated other people, which is the same as committing murder in our minds. Most of all, we haven’t worshipped the God who created us. We’ve given God a virtual slap in the face, refusing to love Him.

Picture this individual sin multiplied by over six billion people. World problems don’t seem so surprising.



Yet God made men to walk in the light—the light of holiness, that is. Not holiness in terms of two-facedness or fake goodness. Not holiness in terms of lists and rules. Holiness that is the absence of corruption.

He made us for His Presence, but our sin (and our love for it) bars the door.

God had one option: He could punish us. Like a judge over reprobates, He could lock us up forever. In fact, in order to be a good judge, He’d have to punish us severely. (Even to our standards, a judge who lets a rapist free isn’t doing his job.) Punishment was necessary for justice, and death is the penalty for sin.


Somebody needed to die.


And yet, in a never-before-seen dramatic twist, heaven rushed to meet earth. Perfection stooped to caress an infected world. The judge took a seat in the reprobate’s electric chair. The Triune God sent the Son to meet death for us.

The One who was called “Morning Star” and “King of Kings” squeezed Himself into the casings of a man. He gave Himself nerve endings, so He could feel pain. He made Himself small, because someone needed to die for sin--so He did.



And our world system still bashes God for trying to force morality on us. Some even publicly denounce His existence. We’ve turned not-worshipping God into an art form. On that note, nothing has really changed.

But God is still Judge. Someone will have to pay for our insolence—for yours. Either you will hate your sin and hide behind Jesus or you will reject Him and pay for it yourself. There is no in-between.


When was the last time you honestly, truly thought about this? Is this truth the foundation of who you are? If not, what is?