Moldy Peaches

I hate mold. It was one of the most repulsively disgusting things in the world. When I work in the cafeteria at school, and I have to touch a moldy peach, or a moldy anything, I always almost throw up. I run to the trash can, toss it and wash my hands with boiling water and tons of soap. I'm afraid that if I touch the mold, it will start growing all over my body.

Last weekend I was in Visalia, CA with Providence's choir singing at a donors banquet. On Sunday we worshiped at Hanford Christian Reformed Church, and the guest pastor preached on sin. He compared sin to mold, and that analogy stuck with me because of my intense hatred for mold.

If I could think of mold growing on my skin, on my heart, mind, and soul, every time I knowingly engage in sin, perhaps I would be less inclined to sin.

Isn't that was sin is like though? It perverts what is good, and it destroys us, and eventually leads to death.

Peaches are beautiful and delicious, but mold perverts that peach and turns it into a mushy, green, fuzzy glump of useless inedible shit. If I am a peach, and sin is mold, then I would like nothing to do with sin, please.

It's not me, it's You

The story goes like this. She went to college, and free from authority, curiosity led her to have sex with her boyfriend. That ended and she did it again with a few other guys until finally her conscience ate her up to the point where she cried out for help from one of her friends from church. Her friend told her pastor about it, and the pastor told her to say the sinner's prayer again. He told her that she needed to be re-saved.

This is a story among many that I have heard of people who fell into sin, and believed that in the process they lost their salvation. This way of thinking is contrary to the gospel. To think that when we sin, we lose our salvation, is to think that we are saved by our own works. This is also to doubt the faithfulness of God, to think his love is as fickle as our own.

I cannot say that I know the heart of that girl to tell you whether or not she was saved before she began sleeping around, and before she repented, but I can say this: Christians are not saved by our works, but by our faith, and even that faith is a gift from God. When we are saved, God will not leave us, because he is faithful to his promise even when we are faithless in our obedience to him. God never chose to save us because we were good people, and he does not continue loving us because of our goodness. It was never about our goodness.

This is on my mind because in my Old Testament class, taught by Dr. Scott Swanson, we recently studied the book of Judges which seems like one of the most depressing books of the Bible. The Israelites, God's chosen people, are stuck in a cycle of apostasy, servitude, supplication, and salvation. They would forget God and start living sinful lives, and God would hand them over to be conquered by other nations. Then they would cry out to God for deliverance and God would raise up a judge to lead them into victory over the oppressing nation. However, as soon as the judge died, the Israelites would fall into the same cycle all over again. 

We look at the Israelites and think, "How stupid they are for not learning from their mistakes!" They stumble again and again into the same sins, and the same consequences. Yet we are the same. Christians are now God's people in the new covenant, and Old Testament Israel is an example to us today (I Cor. 10:11).

What a weird cycle. Why would God keep saving the Israelites when he knew they would eventually forget him again? Because God does not break his promises. In the beginning of the book (Judges 2:1), God reminds Israel of his covenant with Abraham and his descendants and says, "I will never break my covenant with you." There was no reason God had to choose Abraham, but he did because he wanted to for his own glory. And because God made a promise, he was faithful to it, even when his people were not (2 Tim. 2:13). 

Now the fact that God is faithful should not give the idea that God is grudgingly obligated to keep his promise; rather he is compassionate. When we genuinely cry out to God for help, knowing that we cannot help ourselves and we need his deliverance, God will save us. He has compassion, like he did with Israel when they were being oppressed by other nation in Judges.

As Dr. Swason said, "The book of Judges is about recognizing our inability to serve God in ourselves." When we think that our justification or sanctification depend on our own ability to follow God, we are pridefully deceived.

In Judges, God would raise up a leader to defeat oppressing nations, and the odds were always against the Israelite army. This was to show that the Lord of Hosts, who was fighting for them, enabled Israel to defeat the enemy. The people recognized that and trusted in God for victory.

 It is that faith that God desires from us. Faith that he will deliver us, and that we are nothing and can do nothing without him.  In Hebrews 11, these Judges are named in the hall of faith. Did they live moral lives? Were they good people? No. But they trusted not in their own abilities but in God, and recognized that God saves. 

And that faith, even that little faith, comes from God too. I quote the famous verse from Ephesians, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this [faith] is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (2:8-9). That faith God gave us when we were saved, he continues to give us every day as we walk with him. 

Even when we are born again, we will still sin, like Israel. Our sinful bodies and minds conflict with our new nature in Christ. As Paul says, "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing" (Romans 7:18-19). We are messed up people who cannot help ourselves.

But Paul doesn't end there, he says, " Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25). As believers, Christ's righteousness has been imputed onto us so that we are no longer seen as guilty before God. During this life we will fall into sin, but if we cry out to God recognizing we are helpless, he will deliver us. For "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite spirit, O Lord, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). God is our only hope, our only salvation.

So we say to God, "It's not me, it's You." To the Lord of Hosts be the glory forever. 

And at What Point Did It End?

At one point did you dance naked before making love
Among white sheets?
At another point did you fall over in drunken laughter before eating
Spaghetti dinner on the living room floor?

Before music produced stillness.
Before drunkenness was a form of avoidance.

And at what point will it stop being the end?

Move

When I call
it's how are
you that's all
Your voice far
away Tell me
what's really up
Just be real
Really please
Silence Scape goats
Guinness Tapes
Records Won't
change a damn
thing Except
for now That's
a sham
Life's eternal.
You taught me that
Keep your word
Broken down Damn
Silence is unmoving
Move damn it
off the bed
Wake up I
know it hurts
to move
Wake
Up.

Life's a Stumbling

stumbling (stumbling)
your body lapping onto the river's shore.
mumbling (silence)
you're too strong to stoop to a kiss.
when did you decide you could take it no more?

music (murmuring)
your body face up on the bed, eyes dead.
breathe in (silence)
you're too strong to open your mouth.
wish you were here so I could take you in once more.

I miss.
your droning voice
your bad breath
your forever long answers
your obsession with biking
your forever long bed time prayers
your imagination on-your-lap story time.

Life's a'stumbling.