Hi friend,
We’re coming into a new week and with that in mind, let’s start this week off with open and fresh minds!
Last week I talked about how Adam and Eve went out of God’s boundaries. And the more I thought about the garden of Eden, I thought about the generations of finger pointing since then. It started with Adam pointing his finger to Eve, Eve pointing her finger at the Serpent, neither one of them accepted the blame. It’s crazy to think that since then, there’s been so many generations of finger pointers.
When we’ve done something wrong, it is not natural for us to look inside of ourselves for the cause. Sin blocks us from truth, makes us all shockingly self-righteous, and all committed self-excusers. We all buy into the delusion somehow that our biggest problems live outside us, not inside us. We all have an inner lawyer of defense, quickly arising to our defense in the face of any accusation of wrong. We all are skilled at presenting the logic of the argument that what we have done says more about the flawed people and dysfunctional things around us than it does about us. We dodge blame and relocating the cause elsewhere; hindering what the Holy Spirit is trying to convict us of. We tend to be more concerned about he sin in others than the sin in ourselves.
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
1 John 1:8
Because not accepting blame is not natural for us, it takes true grace to produce a humble, willing, broken, self-examining, and help-seeking heart. Only divine grace can soften a person’s heart, help open eyes to see what needs to be seen, and decimate your fences and lead you to confess. It’s only through grace that you quit pointing the finger and run to Him for forgiveness and his delivering power. This kind of grace leads you to forsake your own righteousness, find hope, and rest in His righteousness. You will be more grieved over your own sin than the sin of others because of this kind of grace. Because of this grace, we are able to abandon the confidence in our own performance and place our confidence in the righteousness of Jesus. This grace places your hope in the only place real hope can be found - in God and in him alone. So, in each moment of defensiveness argues how much the grace is still needed.
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” 1 John 1: 5-10
- Brittany