Romans 7:25, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.”
I often speak of relationship to God and practicing His presence. The art of spiritual awareness that allows us to enjoy His ever present company. This relationship was very much the primary motivation of Christ coming to the earth and dying for our sins once and for all. It was the sin that kept us out of relationship. It was the sin that caused God to be unable to look upon us. But with salvation comes an ever covering atonement for sin in the form of Christ blood. We are no longer separated from God by sin.
Please hear me on this, post salvation in Jesus Christ sin is a non-factor. Only the blood of Christ is a factor. It is this absence of consequence that makes for a dynamic relationship with God.
From a practical perspective I have exploded in anger a few times in the past few weeks. I don’t like that I did, I am sorry that I did, I don’t want to do it again, but the fact that I did is in no way an inhibiting factor to my relationship to God. If anything it’s an opportunity to see His perfection once again and to learn from Him. In going to God with my weakness He is open and sharing. My option is to stagnate the relationship by taking the wisdom and dwell on it hoping I can somehow use it to change myself.But I can't change myself, and in relationship to Christ I cannot help but change spontaneously.
Scripture says, “Be angry, and yet do not sin…” I can take this as a rock in my path to God and work and work and work in my own ability to be without sin in anger, or I can enjoy the dynamic relationship and understand that this is the lesson for today. Tomorrow may be an entirely new lesson, or it may be a repeat, but in the dynamic, growing relationship with God and His Son there is nothing certain outside of the opportunity to be aware of His presence right her, right now, in this moment.
And as He always does, He confirms this in my heart with something Jim Spivey sent me quoting Richard Rohr in “Falling Upward.” Richard wrote, “The genius of the Gospel is that it includes the problem inside the Solution. The falling becomes the standing. The stumbling becomes the finding. The dying becomes the rising. The raft becomes the shore. The small self of container-building cannot see this very easily, because it doubts itself too much, is still too fragile, and is caught up in the hopeless tragedy of it all. It has not lived long enough to see the Big Patterns. Many of us discover in times of relentlessly repeated falling the Great Divine Gaze, the ultimate I-Thou relationship, which is always compassionate and embracing, or it would not be divine. Like any true mirror, the gaze of God receives us exactly as we are, without judgment or distortion, subtraction or addition. Such perfect receiving is what transforms us. Being totally received as we truly are is what we wait for and long for all our lives. All we can do is receive and return the loving gaze of God every day, and afterwards we will be internally free and deeply joyful at the same time, thankful for the doorway.”
“Thankful for the doorway…” the dynamically new doorway available every day.
If you find yourself struggling with sin, with walking into the same doorway to heaven day after day try letting go. Go to God just as you are. Trust the sin is not the real you; it is not your spirit. And watch God’s embrace teach, guide, and mold you effortlessly into something you never thought possible. Metaphorically Christianity is a melody played by God, not a single note played incessantly, and not the occasional missed note. On the contrary Christianity is the collection of notes played throughout life and it is masterpiece conducted by God.
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