As I was driving to work today I was thinking about what a mess we are as Christians. So much sin!
Sometimes I just want to hang it all. "This Christian experiment must have had it's day a while back," I think.
But then as I was driving, I pictured the cross, and I was struck by the reality that the "Christian experiment" is not about us, it's about the character and quality of Jesus Christ. It's about God on a cross.
Yeah it's sad that we so often don't reflect Christ, but the truth is his grace will always far-outstrip our efforts. That's why the Christian life and call to love is fully dependent on Jesus, this guy who willingly gave up everything, his family and his life, for you and for me.
What lead me to this thought was trying to be real about the sin I see all around me and in me. It's everywhere. If sin were prune juice (I imagine if it was a juice it'd be prune), it's like somebody dropped a billion-gazillion water balloons full of it on everything.
I could spend the rest of my life growing more and more critical and bitter. Then by the time I was a shriveled up prune of a man that smelled like, well, prunes, and I'd also be a jerk.
That's why the clean-up effort is so arduous but so needed. We need to seek constant intimacy with Christ, not so that we can be better people and lead tidy lives, but so that we can dive into this prune juice that's gotten everywhere and be peacemakers, forgivers, lovers, and have wisdom when addressing sin.
And the clean-up has got to start within, doesn't it? If not we'll all smell like prunes.
It's never quite as bad as I think, our sin situation, it is WAY worse. But it's never quite as good as I think, our resources in God, it's WAY better.
Jesus who commanded the above verse will enable. All I've got to do is ask.
And if you like prune-juice, you've got a serious problem.
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