I have a mind that constantly
over thinks, over analyzes and never stops.
I know that I get too far in my head but in these types of moments my
mind empties………all my thoughts run to the corners of my mind and close their
eyes while silently begging my brain not to pick on them.
Empty. What do you say in these
moments? I know my own beliefs and tend
to tread lightly with conversations at the risk of not offending someone.
As I sat there fiddling
with my small knock-off gold ring on my right hand and an empty mind; I hear
myself saying, “You're saying it backwards.”
“How is that backwards?” was the half
amused response, “How do you justify a loving God sending people to hell
in your faith?”
By this time, I can feel
my own thoughts peaking around the corners wondering what I’m going to say
next, because they sure weren’t going to help.
I gear up to change the
conversation when out of my mouth comes, “God doesn’t send people to hell; He SAVES
us from hell. Everyone is already separated from God and going there.”
I hate this conversation.
Hell. So nasty and gross. So offensive. Can’t we go back to talking
about Friends reruns?
There are moments, like
my coffee conversation, where my mind goes blank and I don’t want to offend
someone or make them uncomfortable with conversations of sin, or the fallen
state of our world. Moments when I lock
up my own testimony of what God has done in my life and what I have been saved
from in order not to offend. No one
wants to offend.
Christianity is offensive. Christianity has always been
offensive. Christianity speaks of a
world that was made perfectly. It speaks
of relationships between mankind and God that were perfect at one time.....and ruined by sin. It speaks of how
we are now separated from God because of our own sin and makes us recognize the depravity in ourselves. The gospel points out our
own sin and short-fallings in God’s Law.
There is nothing that we can do ourselves to fix this. The human condition at its core is offensive. Sure, good things can be done even by us sinners, but no one
could be completely perfect or holy enough to be in God’s presence with sin. Even “good people” could never be this perfect.
As uncomfortable as these
coffee moments can be when I don’t want to talk about sin and hell; the reality
is that we are not left in these places.
The gospel tells of a restored relationship with God through Jesus. Through the cross where Jesus said the words,
“It is finished.” Sometimes, my sinful
side wants to still believe there is something I can do, that it’s not
finished, that “Andrea” can do something.
Thank God this is not the case and that it does not rest on me.
The gospel tells me Christ
has completed what I could never do by being perfect and paying the price for my sin.
That we are saved through grace.
That our relationship with God is restored through Christ’s finished
work. That God sees us through Christ
now. The gospel tells me of grace that
is so undeserved.
I would rather be
comfortable and not have these conversations.
But these are the most important conversations. I live my life with this believe and worldview,
yet sometimes lock it up because I worry about offending. I forget how offensive we are in our human
nature and how loving this good news of salvation actually is.
This news of God who loved His people so much that he paid a price we could not. News that Jesus paid the price to save us sinners....the outcasts of society, the oppressed.
I think back to this coffee
conversation during this week leading up to Easter. I think on my uncomfortableness and wanting
non-confrontational conversations. I
love talking theology, God, worldviews when everyone is on the same page! It’s one of my favorite things to do and
comes up in most coffee conversations. Can’t
someone else have the difficult ones?
Maybe the people in my life who seem to always know what to say just at
the right time?
C.S. Lewis once said, “Christianity,
if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only
thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
Sometimes I treat my
belief as moderately important at the risk of not offending someone else. Yet it can’t be moderately important or just
a lifestyle choice. If it is false…. then
what a waste of time and life; but if true, then it is eternally important and
the most important thing.
I don’t think of a loving
God sending people to hell because I rest in Christ’s finished work and think
of a loving God saving people from hell. I rest in knowing who I am because of who God says I am. I rest in knowing I am saved from sin and
myself. I rest in Christ’s completion and
not my own knowledge where thoughts abandon me. I wish I did think of hell more, because then I would remember the urgency.
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Corinthians 15:16-19 -16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you
are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope[b] in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Pitied. If Christianity is
only for this life and a lifestyle choice then what a waste of a life. We are to be pitied as we should have focused
on this life and all the things that make THIS life paradise.
If Christ had remained in the grave and was not raised, then our
faith is worthless and we are still in sin that has not been covered by Christ.
But Christ didn’t remain in the grave. Instead death was conquered and a way
provided to be in a restored relationship with God.
This Easter I celebrate Christ’s resurrection and the covering of
sin. I celebrate healing and redemption. I celebrate restoration. I celebrate salvation. I celebrate a God who saves.
I celebrate healing and restoration from my own offensive state.
Isaiah 53:5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.
