If God Is "I AM", then Who Am I? - Day 21

Day 21 – sinful (II)

 

No one who reads these words is free from the treachery of sudden sin.  –MAX LUCADO

 

Yesterday we discussed the universality of sin and the consequence of sin. We are all sinners and thus have separated ourselves from a holy God.

To drive this point home, imagine the following experiment:

        Place a one-liter container of “Sterile

        Water” and three sterile specimen
        cups on a table. Fill each cup with water.

         FACT #1: Because the cups are sterile,

        the water inside them remains sterile.

         Now pour the water inside each of the

         cups back into the container.

         FACT #2: Because the cups are sterile,

        you can pour water back and forth
        between cup and container and the
         "Sterile Water" label still be true.

         Now sprinkle one-fourth teaspoon of

         field dirt into one of the cups, a full
         teaspoon into the second cup, and a
        tablespoon into the third. Then fill all
         three again with sterile water from 
        the container.

         FACT #3: No longer can you pour the

         water back without changing the nature
         of the container. The contamination
        within the cups has ended unlimited
         access. The water's filth has separated
         it from its source.

Do you now see why sin is such a big problem? God, the Pure and Holy One, created us and poured Himself into us. His purpose for us is communion with Him, a wonderful relationship of unity in which He flows into us and we into Him. But we have polluted our lives with sin, changing everything. We have become filthy vessels living contaminated lives. As a result, we have separated ourselves from our very Source. God's holy nature cannot and will not change, so we must once again become pure if communion with Him is to be restored. Our filthy nature must be dealt with.

What, then, can we do to end our self-imposed estrangement? A bucket-load of good deeds will never rid us of sin, nor is ritualistic fervor the answer. Good deeds and piety can only dilute our filthiness; still, the pollution remains. Comparing our sins with others won’t help either. Those three specimen cups were unequally contaminated but shared a similar plight. The mere presence of filth, not its relative volume, made the water in them unsterile. Similarly, all of us are unfit for communion with a holy God, no matter the weight of our sins. The problem is not how contaminated we are, but that we are contaminated.

It seems, then, that we are in a hopeless situation. We are created to commune with God yet separated from Him by our sins. Our benevolent deeds, religious faithfulness, and moral comparisons cannot help restore that fellowship. Sin, it appears, is the victor and we the loser. A miracle would be needed to turn the tide. For us to be made right, God would have to somehow intervene on our behalf.

Is our relationship with God of such importance that He would provide a path of restoration for us? We Christians, of course, answer in the affirmative. We believe that Jesus, through his death and resurrection, makes us clean again and restores communion and fellowship with God. He is truly the Door and the Way back to God. The only remedy for sin is Jesus.

SELF-REFLECT

1. If you had terminal cancer and a cure
     was found, how would you feel?

2. If we are hopelessly sin-sick and God
     provides a remedy, how should we feel?

3. What good would that cancer cure be to
     you if you did not take it?

4. What good to you is God’s remedy for
     sin if you refuse it?

 

Daily Quotation
Max Lucado, On the Anvil (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1985), 99.