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Tuesday, January 25, 2005
In high school one afternoon, me and some friends were killing time after school. We had just finished working out and saw some of our other friends who asked us to help them clean up some of the track and field equipment. Some of my buddies went to help out with the hurdles while I went to help out with the "field" equipment.
I never ran track nor had I ever participated in any of the "field" events so I was intrigued by the different equipment.
There was a heavy ball attached to a chain called a "hammer." You spun around several times to get momentum and then flung it was far and straight as you could.
There was a flat rubber plate called a discuss. Same thing as the hammer.
There was a spear, called a javelin, you threw for distance.
There was the high jump pit and we had to put up the bar. There was also a long jump pit we helped rake. There was even a pole vault pole we were supposed to put up and we covered up the mats with a tarp.
Of course, we put them up AFTER we goofed off with our friends with them. They, of course, whipped us at each and every event. They were good at it. Practiced a lot at most of them and they laughed as we changed from event to event being more ridiculous than the one before it.
Then, we challenged each other...the track team friends were the "judges" and we had our own little decathalon challenge (minus the pole vault, which the coach said something about us "breaking our necks"). It wasn't so silly once the playing field was level and the competition broke out among us "non-track" guys.
There's just something in each of us that we measure ourselves against others. Maybe we do it in athletic competitions. Maybe we do it in a classroom setting or environment. Maybe we do it at our job. Maybe we do it with our siblings. Maybe we compare ourselves with neighbors. Maybe we even do it spiritually.
Which is what Paul knew when he wrote Romans.
Take a look at the end of chapter 1 from The Message:
"Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose; rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: Mean-spirited, venemous, fork-tongued God bashers, bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid. Slimey. Cruel. Cold-blooded. And it's not as if they don't know better. They know perfectly well they're spitting in God's face. And they don't care--worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!"
Sounds horrible, right?
And if we're honest, the thought in our brains is something along the lines of "Man, that list is awful! I'm so glad I'm not that bad. I mean, I might have little bits of my life that aren't polished, but sheesh, those people are HORRIBLE."
And we've just done what me and my friends did with the track team: We knew we couldn't reach the track team's standards so we simply lowered them to make the competition "fair." We felt better about ourselves when we lowered the standard and compared ourselves to one another.
Paul knew we were going to do that same thing when we heard the list. So, the line of thought continues (remember, there weren't chapter breaks when Paul wrote the letter) in chapter 2:
"Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn't so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you've done. You didn't think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing your misdoings and from coming down on you hard? Or did you think because He's such a nice God he'd let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he's not soft. In kindness, he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change."
The rock band Chevelle has a song on their self-titled debut CD (the other 2 are good CD's, but the first one is really incredible) called "Point #1" and the theme of the song is that Christ paid for it all, the whole sum, but to magnify pain, is point number one.
And that's what we have to do as followers of Christ. We need to take sin seriously. No longer trifling with it. No longer putting it on a "sliding scale" of comparison against others. But seeing it for what it is: Sin. Missing the mark. Ugliness that is capable of committing the most heinous of actions at any time.
And it separates us from God (see Romans 6:23).
Forever.
It's the worst of all possible news. Which means that there's likely the best of all possible news to come, and more on that tomorrow.
But for today, think through those areas of life in which you trifle with sin. Sweep it under the rug with words like "everybody does it" or "it isn't that big of a thing" or "nobody really gets hurt" and just have some time when you're honest with yourself. And honest with God. He knows it all anyway, has heard it all before, and loves us anyway.
So much so that He provided a way for us to overcome eternal separation from Him...again...more tomorrow on that.
Brent 4:03 AM
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