New Blog!!!

In the book "Boy Meets Girl - Say hello to Courtship!", Joshua Harris (the author) shows three 'tricks' humans use to make themselves feel innocent, like they are somehow worthy of God's forgiveness instead of accepting the simple truth that they are evil down to the very core, and that the only way they are forgiven is through Christ and His sacrifice.

1. Minimizing Sin - People love to minimize their sin. Laugh it off...say they were 'wild' when they were young instead of that they were sinful. Make it seem so trivial that it seems like it's no wonder God forgave it.
2. Ignoring Holiness - This is when people bring God down to their level. You know...Act like God is as tolerant of sin as we are. Like God is laughing with us when we laugh off sin. Sin is sin. 1 Peter 1:15-16 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, "You must be holy because I am holy." (NLT)
3. Living Self-Righteously - This is the 'guilt remover' I am most guilty of. After the mistakes I've made in my past, I became close to God and vowed that I would never do those things again. I became very holy in my own eyes - I saw myself as the 'good kid' that most adults make me out to be. The one who would never do anything wrong. I loved that title and wore it proudly, sometimes even talking self-righteously to my friends that did things I did not approve of, or that I knew God wouldn't approve of. I don't believe it is a bad thing to know that something is wrong, but to act like you are 'above' someone else because they do something wrong is also WRONG!!! I guess for some reason I thought that because I was a good girl when I wasn't being tempted, I was completely capable of being a good girl all the time. Well, I was wrong. I still can't pinpoint a major sin, but lately I have been sinking back into some of my old habits, and I have known that I was wrong to do them. "Who I am hate who I've been" has become my theme song, and because of that, I have started to not only hate what I've been, but love what I become, and I shouldn't.

I thank God for this reality check. He has showed me to never love myself, because I will ALWAYS be a sinner...not a sinner who miraculously re-earned her spot in God's Kingdom, but a sinner to whom the miraculous gift of Grace has been given.

Now I want to put in an excerpt from 'Boy Meets Girl', which is actually an excerpt from another book, called 'When God Weeps', by Steven Estes and Joni Eareckson Tada. This is amazing guys...don't stop reading.

The face that Moses had begged to see - was forbidden to see - was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20). The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth's rebellion now twisted around his own brow....

"On your back with you!" One raises a mallet to sink in the spike. But the soldier's heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner's wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier's life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do "all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on - he grants the warriors continued existence. The man swings.

As the man swings, the Son recalls how he and the Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm - the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless - the nerves perform exquisitely. "Up you go!" The lift the cross. God is on display in his underwear and can scarcely breathe.

But these pains are a mere warm-up to his other and growing dread. He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor begins to waft, not around his nose, but His heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon his spotless being - the living excrement from our souls. The apple of His Father's eye turns brown with rot.

His Father! He must face His father like this! From heaven the Father now rouses himself like a lion disturbed, shakes His mane, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a man hanging on a cross. Never has the Son seen the Father look at him so, never felt even the least of his hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes.

"Son of Man! Why have you behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped - murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, overspent, overeaten - fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh, the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled my name? Have you ever held your razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk - you, who molest young boys, peddle killer drugs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave you the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons? Does the list never end! Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp - buying politicians, pracitcing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves - relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in you! Disgust for everything about you consumes me! Can you not feel my wrath?"

Of course the Son is innocent. He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed.

The Father watches as His heart's treasure, the mirror image of himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah's stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction.

"Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?!"

But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply.

The Trinity had planned it. The Son endured it. The Spirit enabled him. The Father rejected the Son whom He loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted his sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The Rescue was accomplished.