Saturday, March 5, 2016

our sins

Lewis talks today about facing our sins in A Year with C.S. Lewis.

He talks about facing the bad news, that we have indeed sinned, and we cannot even imagine a God who would be OK with what we've done, if we're honest with ourselves.

It's good for us to realize we're sinners. It helps us to put pride in its place, and to begin to be truly humble. It helps us to be compassionate toward others, who are also sinners.

But we do need to keep our sinfulness in perspective. There are some ditches on the sides of this road, and if we don't steer carefully, we might find our car wrecked in one or the other.

On one side of the road, there is the danger of becoming so beaten down by the fact that we've sinned that we lose joy. We could become so focused on our sins that we stop seeing that God is helping us to overcome them. We might become fixated on our sins and lose hope that we'll ever put them behind us.

On the other side, there is the ditch of obsessing about our holiness. We might become so determined not to sin anymore that we put our own holiness above loving. We might find ourselves being short tempered or fearful of our neighbor, worrying that they might cause us to sin and lose our precarious balance on the perch of holiness.

The best remedy for both of these extremes is love. When we set aside our concerns about our own holiness, and focus instead on loving God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving our neighbors the same way we love ourselves, then the holiness vs sin issue takes care of itself.

And all of these things are added unto us.

Thank You, God, for giving us the solution to running off into the ditches of despair and scrupulousness.

1 comment:

Julie said...

That means driving in our lane and not looking at our cell phone.....just kidding, stay focused on others needs and we will be emulating Christ.