Ctrl+Z: Whatever happened, happened

*image courtesy of thesaint at stock.xchng

I was thinking today about mistakes.  I hate mistakes, especially the ones you just can’t fix.  For example, I was in downtown Richmond this afternoon and unwittingly parked illegally.  It was a “No Parking Zone,” but only from 4-6pm.  I saw the sign, thought I was out of the tow zone, and even backed up one parking meter to get further away from that scowling white sign with its slashy circle of scorn.  Alas, I was apparently in the tow zone, and it was 4:15.

Of course.

Now, there’s no going back.  I have no defense.  There’s no wiggle room, there’s no making up for it, there’s no making it all go away.  Instead, sixty of my hard-earned dollars will be painting a bench somewhere downtown or helping to pay some civil servants salary, probably the one who wrote my ticket.

Thankfully, we have the universal reset button: Ctrl+Z.

Yes, the “undo” feature started as a handy ability on word processing that has now spread to nearly every program I encounter.  Accidentally delete a paragraph?  Undo!  Accidentally delete the pictures of your kid’s first birthday?  Ctrl+Z!  It’s truly an amazing function, and has become so ubiquitous that sometimes it’s hard to remember that it only works on computers.

I’ve often wished that life had an undo function.  I’ve wished that I could simply stroke a few keys and find myself five minutes in the past, or maybe a whole day, with the chance to do it all over again.  Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, I’d know how I failed the try before, and could do it again and again until I got things juuust right.

Until Google/Apple/Facebook/Skynet/Big Brother finds a way to implement an actual undo button for life, or we all find ourselves sucked into/uploaded into the cloud, we have to live with our analog mistakes.  Now, this is a biblical blog (biblog? no, sorry, that’s dumb), so you might think this is where I pull out the Jesus card like this…

Jesus is the Eternal Undo Button!

But, you’d be wrong.  And that’s ok, because you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and darn it people like you.

No, that’s not the point I’m going to make.  Ok, that’s half true.  Jesus does take away your guilty standing as a rebel against the King of the Universe, don’t get me wrong.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean a cosmic “undo” for all those who believe.  Sometimes, there are long-lasting effects of sin in your life that simply won’t go away.  (Note I used “won’t” not “can’t.”)

It goes like this…

When you put your faith and trust in Jesus, a few things could happen: God could remove all traces of a particular sin in your life, including guilty standing, temptation to repeat, and negative consequences. Or, God could remove the guilt of your sin but not the consequences of your sin.  You see, the guilt part is integral to salvation.  In fact, it’s what you’re believing when you put your trust in Jesus: that He can and will forgive you of your sins and restore your right standing before God if you will believe.

The other stuff, is not as sure.  I’m sure you know or have heard of someone who came to Jesus and immediately put down their drugs, promiscuity, Disney movies, and all other forms of evil in their lives without ever looking back.  They experienced no withdraw symptoms, never had a second thought, and could march right back into the bar/strip club/theme park without fear of relapse.  Praise God, He is still at work and does mighty things for the glory of His Name!

However, sometimes God chooses, for reasons we don’t know, to not deliver someone as radically and instantaneously.  I would argue that this is the norm.  God gives us the words of Paul to put off the old self and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22-23).  Therefore, we are urged to work together with God through the power of the Holy Spirit to strive towards obedience in this particular area.

Also, sometimes the consequences of our sin will not be removed.  God has built into the fabric of the universe a cause and effect system that goes beyond physics.  What we plant is what we will harvest (Galatians 6:7-9).  This is the biblical counter to “what goes around comes around” or karma.  The difference is that God can override this, and it doesn’t apply to our eternal state if we are in Christ.  What it does apply to is our life in the here and now.

Lead a promiscuous life and you might end up with a disease.  God can heal you of that, but it’s neither a guarantee nor the norm.  God may bless you with a wonderful marriage down the road with a pure and holy sex life, but you may not ever get certain images out of your head.  Murder someone, and God can and will forgive you for your sin.  That doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t go to jail.  Lie through all your B.C. years, and people might have a hard time believing you when get all truthful on them.

Just because we’re Christians doesn’t mean that we’re somehow exempt from the real world.  There are still consequences to our actions.  God may choose to supernaturally override the norm, but don’t count on it in every case.  We don’t have an “undo” button for life, and this is the only shot we get on this earth.  We will be judged for what we do here, and there will be no going back.

Whatever happened, happened.

Bible in 90, Day 67: A ray of hope

Zechariah, Haggai, Zephaniah

image courtesy of johnnyberg at stock.xchng

I hate punishing my kids.  Every time I have to take away a toy, revoke tv time, or worst of all spank either one of my boys, I die a little.  But, as I frequently remind them, I have to punish them for bad behavior because I love them.  And whenever the punishment is done, especially the spankings, I always hug my boys and remind them how much I love them, how much I hate punishing them, and I do my best to quiet their tears and crying with my love.

We’ve been reading some difficult passage over the last 18 days or so.  We’ve read over and over again about all the terrible things that were coming to Israel, Judah, and other nations because of their wickedness.  Today we got to see a ray of hope in the midst of all the calamity.  Not that we haven’t seen hope in the words of the prophets so far, but two passages in particular seemed quite hopeful and reassuring.

One passage is all of Haggai.  Yes, there is some naming of sin and resulting curses from God, but there is also a call to action.  The people are back in the land, and they can finally rebuild the Temple of the Lord!  Just as God promised, He has brought them back into the land which He gave to their forefathers all those generations ago.  Haggai spurs the people on to build the Temple, and they do just that.  God also promises that a greater glory will fill the Temple in the future than was ever known in the past.  Ultimately, this would be fulfilled when Christ Himself was present in the Temple as a child (see Luke 2:21-52).

The other passage is Zephaniah 3:14-20.  Here, God promises restoration after the destruction that is about to come to Jerusalem.  God tells the people to sing joyfully because He has taken away their punishment and will deal with those who oppressed them.  Verse 17 is amazing

The LORD your God is with you,
He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with his love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.

Do you hear the tenderness of God here?  Do you hear the love, compassion, and passion God has for His people?  As we discussed before, God does not delight in punishing His people, just as no father delights in punishing his children.  He punishes for the good of His people, but He is quick to restore, forgive, and quiet them with His love.

Let’s not scorn the correction of God.  Let’s remember that on the other side of God’s punishment is God’s restoration, forgiveness, and intense love.  Let’s always cling to that ray of hope in the midst of whatever trial or hardship we might be going through.

originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 66: Jonah asked for it, Nahum got it

Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk

image courtesy of matthains at stock.xchng

Five prophets, one day – that’s what I’m talking about!  The longer I do it, the more I love the Bible in 90 Days Challenge!

VeggieTales has a great song at the end of their Jonah movie.  The chorus goes something like this:

Jonah was a prophet, ooo ooo!

But he really never go it, sad but true!

If you’ve been watchin’ you can spot it!  A doodely doo!

He did not get the point!

They make a great point, those signing vegetables.  God sent Jonah on a mission of mercy to call Assyria to repentance by preaching God’s coming wrath to its capital Nineveh.  You know the story – God calls boy, boy runs away, boy gets on boat, other boys through boy off the boat, fish eats boy – your basic ingredients for an awesome Sunday School lesson or feature film.  While in the belly of the great fish (the Bible never calls it a whale), Jonah repents and God commands the fish to spit him up onto dry land.  Jonah receives the mercy he wasn’t willing to offer the Assyrians.

Jonah keeps his word and preaches to Nineveh.  Based on his actions in chapter 4, it seems that he was hoping his preaching would not be heeded by the Ninevites, but it was.  The king himself repented and commanded the people to seek God’s forgiveness.  God sees their turning away from sin and toward Him and forgives them, not bringing the disaster He had threatened.  After receiving mercy from God himself, you’d think that he would rejoice at the repentance of Nineveh and God’s great mercy toward the people.

Instead, Jonah’s ticked!

He’s actually angry that God made him preach to Nineveh because he knew that God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love (4:2)!  He gets all suicidal and mopey, crying over the death of his shade tree/weed.  It’s funny, we normally leave the story of Jonah right after people repent, because this is the happy ending.  But where the Holy Spirit leaves the story is with Jonah whining and God telling him how messed up it is that he’s crying over the death of a plant but doesn’t care about the lives of over 120,000 people in Nineveh.  For Jonah, God’s forgiveness just wasn’t fair.  The Assyrians were just too wicked to forgive.

Later on, Assyria turned back to its wicked ways and God send Nahum to preach their coming destruction.  Because of their endless cruelty (3:19), God wiped them out with the Babylonians.  Many of the atrocities that the Assyrians had subjected other cities to during their hey day were brought into the walls of Nineveh.  The scene is horrific, but is very much the same as what they had done throughout the years to other nations.  Because they did not turn to God this time, His judgment, not His mercy, fell on Nineveh.

What Jonah asked for, Nahum got to see.

Is it right for us to expect God to hold others to a different standard than we hold ourselves to?  Paul tells us that we are to forgive as we have been forgiven (Ephesians 4:32).  Our sins against God are much greater than any sin someone could commit against us.  For that matter, if God forgives someone, how can we withhold our forgiveness from them?  Are we more offended than God?  God tells us that we don’t have to worry because ultimately He will settle all accounts (Romans 12:19).  This was true of Assyria – in the end they got what they deserved.  Each of us will stand before God and give an account, and if we don’t have the forgiveness of Christ we will be punished accordingly.

Let’s not put ourselves above God’s judgment by withholding forgiveness from those who’ve wronged us.  Let’s be willing to forgive, and not presumptuous about our own right to be forgiven.  Let’s learn the lesson that Jonah didn’t: God will have mercy on whom He will have mercy (Romans 9:15; Exodus 33:19).

originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 64: Did she ever say, “Shazam!”?

Daniel 9-Hosea 14

image courtesy of xymonau at stock.xchng

I married the most amazing woman I’ve ever known on June 7, 2003.  Since that time, we have prayed that God would glorify Himself through our marriage and through our family.  We want to have a home that displays God’s glory.  Keelie and I want our marriage to accurately reflect the relationship to Christ and the church as much as is possible within our limitations as fallen people.  In this way, we hope that our marriage and family are a picture of the gospel to everyone we meet.

God had a different plan for Hosea’s family.  He commanded Hosea to take an adulterous woman, Gomer, as his wife.  He then had him give his three children names that reflected the coming judgment of God.  When Gomer chased after other men, God had Hosea go and redeem her and bring her back into his home.  Hosea continued to show love to a woman who blatantly abused his love.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

Much like Ezekiel, God used Hosea’s life and actions to paint a vivid picture for Israel.  Hosea’s marriage to Gomer represented God’s relationship to Israel.  Just as Gomer chased after other men and committed adultery with them, so Israel had chased after other gods to commit spiritual adultery with them.  Just as Hosea remained faithful to Gomer and even wooed her back, so God continued to love Israel, calling her back to repentance.

God’s love for His people is greater than we can imagine.  Many of us would not fault Hosea if he had forsaken his adulterous wife and started over again with a woman who really loved him.  But God deliberately put Hosea into this position to demonstrate the depths of His love and the lengths to which He will go to bring a wayward sinner back into His love.  I believe that marriages can be saved more often than we give them a chance to be saved, but God’s love is greater than even the love of a man and wife.  His love is faithful and endures forever (1 Chronicles 16:34, etc.).

Let’s never forget the depths of God’s love.  Let’s remember that no matter how unfaithful we’ve been, if we turn back to Him, He will show His love and forgiveness for us again.  Let’s also remember that God expects us to show that same love to others.  If we’ve experienced the grace and forgiveness of God for all of our sin, how can we withhold forgiveness from someone who has wronged us (Matthew 18:21-35)?

couldn’t resist the Gomer Pyle references! 😉

originally at Words of Reason

Bible in 90, Day 58: He stands ready

Jeremiah 48 – Lamentations 5

*image courtesy of lcs9 at stock.xchng

A small note before we start, I’ve deviated somewhat from the reading plan today.  I couldn’t stand to do just one of the five chapters of Lamentations, so I actually did all five.  This will be reflected in today’s devotional.

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  ~ Lamentations 3:22-23

The verse may seem a little out of place in today’s reading.  We read about the terrible judgment that fell on Jerusalem, with all the horrible tragedies that resulted.  We are in the midst of thinking about the wrath of God and the suffering of the people of Israel, and then we come across these verses.  How is it that Jeremiah could say that God had great love for His people, and that His compassions are new every morning?  Were they new the morning the Babylonians invaded and carried away hundreds of people into exile?  Were they new when people were starving to death during the siege?  How can God be seen as renewing His compassion and mercy every morning if one morning He brings destruction?

Just because God’s compassion is new every morning does not mean that everyday is an automatic do-over.

Did you have do-overs when you were a kid?  You goof up in kickball and call “Do over!”  The ball hits too close to the line in foursquare, no one can agree on the call… “Do over!”  Sometimes we expect God to grant automatic do-overs.  But it’s not quite like that.

At any point, the people of Jerusalem could have repented and God would have forgiven them.  God sent messenger after messenger to plead with the people to do just that.  They refused to listen, even killing the messengers God sent.  As we saw yesterday, they continued to reject the message even after witnessing the destruction of Jerusalem.  Through it all, God stood ready to forgive His wayward people.

Just like the dew that falls fresh every morning, so God’s compassion and mercy are fresh every morning.  But God’s mercy being new everyday doesn’t make our sin go away.  It doesn’t mean that God has amnesia every morning.  It means that everyday is a new opportunity to turn back to God.  If we don’t seek God’s forgiveness we won’t receive it.  But if we turn from our sin, and return to God, his mercy is new every morning and He stands ready to forgive us.

Let’s never take God forgiveness or mercy for granted.  His grace is not something we deserve, but something He gives out His own love.  Let’s never assume that our sins are forgiven each new day.  Let’s remember to confess our sins, trusting that He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us (1 John 1:9).  Let’s awake each day, knowing that if we have confessed our sins, they are behind us, and today is a new day to walk in the light as He is in the light (1 John 1:7).

*originally at Words of Reason