Sin Pollution

Posted on December 11, 2019 by admin

Advent 2019 – A Journey Towards Forgiveness

But if we own up to our sins, God shows that He is faithful and just by forgiving us of our sins and purifying us from the pollution of all the bad things we have done. 1 John 1:9 (The Voice)

North of Los Angeles and south of San Francisco lies the central valley of California. Rich in agricultural heritage and a leading fruit producer, it helps California boast the fifth largest economy in the world. It’s also rich in pollution. According to one CBS News report, the span from Los Angeles to San Francisco has six of the worst air polluted cities in the united states.

I remember talking to a friend after he got back from a run on a particularly bad day, he pulled his sock sown and you could see a line of dirt that had built up around him. The air was so bad, you could literally see it sticking to him.

Sin Pollution

Internally, we suffer from sin pollution as John points out here. Every moment of strife, bitterness, anger, hatred, word of gossip, thought of jealous, pursuit of greed, abuse of power, and quest for dominance blots our soul a little bit dirtier. Soon, like the thick valley air that blocks out the sun, our own souls are dark and dingy.

“But” is John’s interjection. If we own up to our sins, those moments of strife, bitterness, anger, hatred, gossip, jealousy, greed, and corruption, God wipes away that pollution.

Solving the valley’s air pollution problem is a long and complicated journey. Thankfully, solving our sin pollution is not. If we own up to our sins, admit that we cannot solve the problem on our own, God is faithful and forgiving. He cleanses us from our sin pollution and makes us clean, fresh, and new.

Advent’s waiting invites us to examine our lives. To own up to our sins. To admit our failure and shortcomings. It relieves us of the pressure to fix it on our own. God’s coming child will reconcile the world back to himself and make all things right. Justly forgiving and deeply purifying us from self-destruction and sin pollution.

Advent Series Previous Posts

Compassion and Forgiveness

Those Who Forgive

Repentance Requires Action

Learn To Do Good

Dirty Clothes

Toward Certain Destruction

Posted on December 10, 2019 by admin

Here’s the point. God didn’t send His Son into the world to judge it; instead, He is here to rescue a world headed toward certain destruction. John 3:17 (The Voice)

Advent 2019 – A Journey Towards Forgiveness

One of my biggest frustrations with God is that he never goes with my ideas. I love being in charge and making decisions. I think I’m at my best when I’m in control and set the destination. If he would only go with my ideas, we (or and least I) would be so much better off.

But this passage is a firm reminder as to why he doesn’t put me in charge. Truth be told, I’m actually pretty terrible at it. I make self-destructive choices. Worse than that, I make choices that hurt and harm others. I’m inclined to make sure fair benefits myself first.

I make choices headed towards certain destruction. Rarely do I make choices that deny short term pleasure for long term gain. I’m capable of wasting an entire day trying to discover how to have my cake and eat it too. And if I can’t, I’m totally willing to steal your cake.

My point? Despite my best efforts, to date, I have been unable to save myself. More troubling, the more I have found out about myself, the more I have discovered just how incapable I truly am.

There is a lot I can do for myself. One of the things I am forever unable to accomplish is my own salvation. I need something else…someONE else to do it for me.

Toward Certain Destruction

We’re all in the same boat. It doesn’t take a long glance at the nightly news to know our world is deeply troubled. Wars, famine, disease, conflict, political division, all are wreaking havoc in our society and around the world. The end result of people looking for something besides Jesus to save them.

In fact, these are all forms of people looking to save themselves. Because I’ll be good if my political candidate wins, my team wins, or my country becomes the world’s leading superpower. It is a belief that “might makes right.” I’ll win when I have enough power to keep you from harming me.

And along the way, I’ll make whatever destructive choices I need to. We are a world headed toward certain destruction.

Advent’s waiting is a time of examination. It opens us up to all of our self-destructive habits, all of our worst behaviors, all of our selfish choices, and invites us to repent. To go from “toward certain destruction” and go “toward life abundantly.”

John, today’s author, even ends his observation this way.

Light, sent from God, pierced through the world’s darkness to expose ill motives, hatred, gossip, greed, violence, and the like. Still some people preferred the darkness over the light because their actions were dark. Some of humankind hated the light. They scampered hurriedly back into the darkness where vices thrive and wickedness flourishes. Those who abandon deceit and embrace what is true, they will enter into the light where it will be clear that all their deeds come from God. (1:19-21)

Advent Series Previous Posts

Compassion and Forgiveness

Those Who Forgive

Repentance Requires Action

Learn To Do Good

Dirty Clothes

Posted on December 9, 2019 by admin

Advent 2019 – A Journey Towards Forgiveness

Just as I have taken away your dirty clothes, I have taken away your guilt from you. In place of those clothes, I will dress you in pure, expensive garments. Then you will be ready to serve God and lead the festival. Zechariah 3:4 (The Voice)

Day 9 – Dirty Clothes

As a family of six, every day is laundry day. Four rambunctious kids who like to play outside, a steady supply of gym clothes, and the inevitable winter sicknesses leave us scrambling to have clothes clean consistently. It seems like just as soon as I have taken away dirty clothes, more appear. An unending mound of socks, towels, and pants are cascading down our hallway.

From a very visceral level, I get the analogy God is using. My selfishness and deceit have piled up in the corner of my life like an ever-growing pile of dirty clothes. The mess we find ourselves in is one we cannot escape on our own.

Despite all of that, there is God, as a patient parent, cleaning everything up for us. More than that, he has also given us new clothes. Clean clothes. Dressed-to-the-nines clothes. In his lavish generosity, God has replaced our worn out, dirt ridden clothes with luxury items of the finest quality?

What did we do to deserve this?

Well…nothing.

More difficult is that there is nothing we could’ve done. This is all God. The creator of the universe, not content to let us stay dirty, has taken away our rags and given me riches.

Deep Cleansing

Like Eustace in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. His selfishness left him a dragon covered in scales. Unable to cleanse himself and transform back into a boy, he must let the lion-king Aslan do his work. Eustace describes the experience as, “The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

Eustace walks away transformed. He’s a boy again. More than that he is kind and generous and brave. His external transformation from a dragon to a boy led to a deeper transformation of character and heart.

That is what God offers us here. A chance to experience deep, real, and lasting transformation . A chance to experience a new life direction and purpose.

Advent reminds us to wait expectedly. A new hope is coming. A Messiah will be born. Coming into this world is a Savior-King longing to rid us of the filth we put on ourselves and give us a new purpose.

Advent Series Previous Posts

Compassion and Forgiveness

Those Who Forgive

Repentance Requires Action

Learn To Do Good

Those Who Forgive

Posted on December 7, 2019 by admin

Advent 2019 – A Journey Towards Forgiveness

Those who forgive faults foster love, but those who repeatedly recall them ruin relationships. Proverbs 17:9 (The Voice)

Day 6 – Those Who Forgive

There’s a meme floating around the internet that says, “If you ask your husband to fix something around the house, he will. There’s no need to remind him every six months.”

No one likes a nag, right?

Worse than that, no one likes a constant reminder of their failures.

“I forgive you…but never let you forget that you hurt me.” That’s not forgiveness, that’s emotional manipulation.

Those who forgive faults foster love. Why? Because we all love being around people who forgive us. Those willing to overlook our quirkiness are who we call friends.

But those who repeatedly recall them ruin friendships. And while it says friendships, the reality is that it’s any relationship.

A recent Gallupsurvey reports that 34% of employees are considered “engaged” in the workplace.

Surprised it’s not higher?

It actually ties for the highest number in the eighteen years of the survey. And it’s trending up.

The reason? Employee appreciation.

Turns out, people like being appreciated. They like being told they are doing a good job. People enjoy thanked and valued. Want to have less employee turnover? Thank them for doing a good job.

What psychology tells us today, the psalmist told us millennia ago.

Placing value in relationships means overlooking offenses and fostering love.

Advent’s waiting reminds us of our need to be in relationships. We are longing for a relationship with the Creator of the Universe. We are longing to be restored to those around us. Our greatest desire is to be in right relationship: with ourselves, with others, and with God.

The way he does that is through forgiveness. The way we do that is similar: forgive faults, forget them, and never bring them up.

Advent Series Previous Posts

Compassion and Forgiveness

Advent 2019 – A Journey Towards Forgiveness (Day 3)

Posted on December 3, 2019 by admin

Blog Post Cover Photo: Advent 2019 A Journey Towards Forgiveness

Advent 2019 – A Journey Towards Forgiveness (Day 3)

Is there any other God like You, who forgives evil and passes over the transgressions done by Yours who remain? He does not hold onto His anger forever because he delights in showing love and kindness. He will take pity on us again, will tread our wrongdoing underfoot. He will cast all our sins down to the bottom of the sea. Micah 7:18 (The Voice)

Day 3

I’m fascinated by the ocean. The vast open spaces, the abundant life, the endless possibilities. Rich biodiversity where the biggest animals on earth are sustained by some of the smallest. A wild place of exotic animals, it’s fascinating that we have better maps of our moon and Mars than we do of the bottom of the ocean.

My oldest son shares this fascination. Every chance he gets he’s reading a new book on sharks or ocean life. If you ask him something about a particular shark, he’s likely to know it. How fast it swims, where it’s located, its favorite type of fish, or what it does if it runs into an octopus.

And somewhere down there, Micah tells me, are my discarded and forgotten sins. (Thank goodness we’ve only mapped about 20% of the ocean floor to date so no one has found them….).

And likeyesterday, here is yet another verse reminding us that God’s first desire is love, kindness, and forgiveness. When he finds our sins, he tramples on them, grinding them under his foot and destroying them. Then, for extra measure, he chucks them into the open ocean.

The season of Advent, this time of waiting in hope and anticipation of a Savior is the fulfillment of a long-suppressed hope. For centuries, humanity has been waiting for liberation. Freedom from the bondage of sin. A releasing of the shackles that bind us.

It is in this action that God delights: forgiving, removing, trampling, and discarding sin. As we await the birth of the Liberating King, may we delight in the God who has trampled and discarded our sins, never to be found again?

Advent 2019 – A Journey Towards Forgiveness Previous Posts

Day 1

Day 2