God's Grace for Social Situations

My Oswald Chambers devotion today said:

“One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be totally humiliated before others without displaying even the slightest trace of anything but His grace.”

I love this because it reminds us that with God we can be free from all that scares us: embarrassment, being judged, having people talk about us behind our back, being smirked at, and being patronized. As the youngest of six, an introvert, and a social misfit, I’ve experienced, as I’m sure many of you have, all of the above.

Some of you who followed my old blog on WisMoms know about my past alcohol addiction. One of the reasons I took to alcohol so readily—as many others have--is because of shyness and the discomfort of being in my own skin. Alcohol took me out of that skin and into a world where I could be confidently social. When I was under the influence, people and social situations didn’t scare me; sober, they terrified me.

In the early days of my sobriety that fear of social situations made it almost impossible to be with people. While at a social function, I counted the minutes before I could leave and return to the safety and anonymity of my car. If my husband left my side, I went into an internal panic. But as I accepted Christ and began to live a life under His authority and grace, I began to be healed of my social phobia and become comfortable—not in my skin, but in the skin I now wore with God.

God blessed me with a reporting job where I learned how to go into groups and walk up to people and ask them questions. I met complete strangers in their homes or over coffee and asked them personal questions about their lives and experiences. And I did it all sober, and through the grace of God. Today, I can easily talk to strangers and, through a reliance on God, hold my own at a social gathering. That doesn’t mean I’ve become a social butterfly! Hardly! I still prefer one-on-one time with people and love an empty answering machine!

I admit that some situations still scare me, like gatherings with extended family or parties where alcohol is a factor (not because I’m tempted to drink, but because I’m tempted to judge those who are drinking and loathe the general drinking atmosphere). I often moderate my blood pressure and calm my nerves on the way to these gatherings by reading my Bible in the front seat of the car as we travel to the event (If I’m driving, I listen to Christian radio).

For those of us who have fluctuating comfort levels with social situations, and as we enter the 4th of July weekend where there will be many family gatherings, graduation parties, company and church picnics, etc., I pray that the above quote from Chambers, along with God’s grace, will alleviate any fear and apprehension we may have. It’s always a comfort to remember that if God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31). There is no greater joy than knowing that God understands our weaknesses and is always right there by our side.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” James 1:2-5

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13

What People Bring with Them

Me and Val, the wise B & B proprietor and also wonderful gardener!

I just returned from our summer family vacation. One of the nights we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast, and as we chatted with the lovely motherly-type woman who runs the lodging, I commented that she must encounter all types of people. Her response is something I doubt I will ever forget, and something I pondered for the rest of the vacation. She said, “You don’t know what people are carrying around with them. When they go on vacation, they don’t leave it behind, they bring it with them.”

Her words were full of compassion as well as a matter-of-factness that I found clarifying. None of us knows what people “bring with them” to the grocery store, the restaurant, the workplace, or the classroom. We sum up our opinions of folks based on so little, never getting to what Paul Harvey called “the rest of the story.” Many times, since our encounters are with strangers or with more formal acquaintances such as teachers or bosses, we are never able to find out the full story.

Yet regardless of who it is or how they are behaving, we can ask God to meet that person right where they’re at. Instead of making a snide comment about the person, or thinking the worst of someone, I’m trying instead to pray on-the-spot for them, asking God to intervene in their life and put them on the Damascus Road.

God in His Grace is allowing me more and more to see difficult people as lost instead of seeing them the way I am used to seeing them; as people who deserve to be derided. Praying for them doesn’t mean I condone their behavior or excuse it. It simply means I want them called out of their lostness the same way God called me out of my lostness. I want them to be free, finally, of the stuff they bring with them.

“But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” Psalm 86:15

“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Luke 6:27-28

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Colossians 3:12-13

“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” Colossians 4:2

What's Blooming this Week

Photos by Barb Harwood. Taken in my garden week of June 1, 2009. From top to bottom: Prairie Smoke (native Wisconsin prairie plant); Emerald Carousel Barberry; Iris; Common Snowball Viburnum; Prairie Smoke; Columbine

"There's not a plant or flower below but makes your glories known..." from the hymn, "I Sing the Mighty Power of God" by Isaac Watts, 1715

Civil Liberty that is Not

Two Brookfield Wisconsin high schools can now proceed as planned and hold their graduation ceremonies in a church. If you aren’t aware of the story, you can read it here: http://www.620wtmj.com/news/local/46731562.html. Americans United for Separation of Church and State took the two public high schools to court to prevent them from holding graduation in a religious place of worship. They took issue with a Cross hanging in the church, citing the viewing of it as a violation of separation of church and state. What’s most amazing is that all nine of the plaintiffs refused to be named:

“The judge revealed that at least one of the anonymous nine who filed this complaint is a current graduating senior.”

The fact that they don’t want anyone to know who they are makes you wonder about their commitment to the cause. And about that current graduating senior, the article goes on to state:

“That student’s attorney does not know if the student will still participate in graduation.”

Is this a great country or what? We have the ability to choose what we can in all conscience participate in and what we can’t. If we feel we are unable to cope with being in a church for two hours out of our life for a secular ceremony, then we have the right to opt-out. Freedom is a wonderful thing.

The simple question from this story for me is, where are the diversity hounds when you need them? You know, the people who preach diversity diversity diversity? If people are so bent on diversity, then doesn’t it figure that an atheist can respectfully take part in a secular graduation ceremony that just happens to take place in a building with pews and a wooden Cross? Is that really beyond the ability of any American 18-year-old who has, for 12 years, attended school with students of varying ethnic, social and cultural backgrounds and lifestyle choices? Is it really beyond the ability of an adult who is about to graduate into the real world of life, work and college to deal with the situation of graduation held in a church? An atheist might be offended? Well, join the club. It’s called the “we don’t have a right to never be offended” club.

People of faith have to live in a secular world every day. Within our faith we have our peer groups and leaders, but that is within the greater context of a devoutly secular humanist world. We shop in grocery stores that play raunchy music and display equally raunchy magazines. We keep our TV remotes handy to flip from inane commercials and television shows. We're forced to sit amongst drunks at ball games and concerts. Our kids attend public government run schools (that we pay taxes for) and are exposed daily to morally relative, liberal teachings and attitudes that go directly against many faiths. In the workplace, we take orders from bosses not led or directed by faith in anything but themselves, and we are forced to overhear crude and obnoxious jokes over the water cooler. I think you get the drift. We live in a world in which many of the places we congregate the Cross is not present, physically or spiritually. If people of faith tried to sue every place we ever walked inside of or laid eyes on because it is “offensive,” hurts our feelings or threatens to crush our thin veneer of self-esteem, we’d be so busy suing we wouldn’t be able to carry out the normal duties of life.

"Civil liberties” groups like AUSCS, along with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, must carry a low regard, or no regard at all, for people’s ability to function and live in a diverse world. Is it their intent that not even churches are allowable, since an atheist might be walking down the public sidewalk and be offended, hurt and crushed that their eyes actually have to view a Cross or a statue of Mary?

FFRF and the AUSCS apparently think that society is so weak that it needs a nanny to protect its tender hearts and minds from the world. A world that includes mosques, temples, churches, store-front Christian Science Monitor reading rooms, Christmas decorations, Christian schools, seminaries, Salvation Army food centers, ambulances with Crosses on them, religious retail outlets, and on and on. What kind of impact does Freedom from Religion hope to have by enabling and coddling people’s inability to get along with one another and live in a multi-cultural and religiously diverse world? These “civil liberty” groups are not about liberty at all: they’re about crippling people within a victimhood that prevents them from true fellowship with a diverse world.

The First Amendment in the Bill of Rights states:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Let’s stop right there. The news article quotes Elmbrook Schools Superintendent Matt Gibson as saying,

“We’ve held to a secular ceremony all the way through.”

Congress is not “establishing a religion” by allowing the schools to hold a secular graduation ceremony in a church. And the democracy of the situation is such that the majority of the people who are directly involved actually want the graduation to take place in the church! Isn’t majority rule pretty much the foundation of things in this country? Do we see a show of hands? Most people are in favor, as is revealed in this quote from the article:

“Most parents are pleased with the ruling” (to hold graduation in the church).

“You've got a very large school that has a lot of students, a lot of parents, a lot of relatives that want to participate,” said parent Lynn Kilb.
Yet nine anonymous people can spinelessly stir up dust and no doubt cost the school district a lot of money in an attempt to prevent the majority from carrying out a graduation ceremony in the most comfortable, efficient manner possible.

When you look at the FFRF and AUSCS, you realize they are fighting a losing battle because the amendment they fight for says "freedom OF religion." The Bill of Rights never says that we have a freedom FROM religion, just as it never says that church and state cannot co-exist. Ever see that bumper sticker that says “co-exist” with various religious and lifestyle symbols, including Christianity? It’s an advertisement to co-exist; Christianity — The Cross -- included. The Bill of Rights allows us to co-exist when it says Congress cannot establish religion but also cannot prevent the free exercise thereof, and it cannot abridge the freedom of speech.

So when AUSCS makes the claim that Congress DOES prevent us from co-existing, and DOES prevent us from ever being hurt by being exposed to a religious symbol that may not be our own, AUSCS is wrong. And that’s why their lawsuits continue to lose in the American court of law.

All of us, regardless of our beliefs or our lifestyle, will do well to remember the Biblical mandate to “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. ..Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position (might I say that the nine anonymous plaintiffs be willing to associate with a religious venue for two hours?) Do not be conceited…Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Romans 12:12-13, 16, 17-18

copyright Barb Harwood

An Event Mentality

My son is a senior in high school, and to honor that, the school has held an evening banquet at a reception hall, a school-day afternoon "fry" at the local state park, and in addition will hold a Baccalaureate service, scholarship awards ceremony at the school the morning of graduation, and then finally, the graduation ceremony.

And that's just the beginning; then comes a summer of endless graduation festivities. There will be white tents raised in back yards, relatives who haven't seen the teen in years congregating in living rooms, pig roasts and beer kegs and caterers, etc. etc. I've heard of one couple that is having disagreements over how large their child's graduation party should be. Some schools take their seniors on cruises! It makes me marvel: if the graduation party is a huge deal, just wait until the wedding shower, wedding, honeymoon and baby shower! When does it ever stop?

Here's where I pipe in sounding like a member of the older generation: When I graduated, we had a graduation ceremony at which we were handed our diploma and then moved on. I know a woman who was raised by missionary parents, and when she graduated high school in Aruba, there wasn't even a ceremony. They were simply handed a piece of paper and told they were done. I like that. I like it a lot.

I don't mean to rain on anyone's graduation party. Small gatherings with close family and friends are fine. Maybe all the fuss my son's school makes is just a symptom of where I live: a small community with the average size of the graduating class between 60 and 90 kids. Most of them have journeyed from Kindergarten on up together. It's a tight-knit group. In contrast, my graduating class consisted of 600 students -- students who merged in high school from the two large local middle schools. Many of us just wanted to graduate and get out of Dodge. And since the drinking age was 18 at the time, most of us didn't need to have parties hosted by our parents; the bars did that for us. But I digress. It seems to me that, due to smaller families, better incomes and the self-esteem movement of the last 20 years, the red carpet is rolled out more and more for something that happens every day and isn't quite as unique as we might think.

As my husband says, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to graduate from high school. He also likes to point out that humans have been giving birth since, well, the beginning of creation. Neither is a particularly unique accomplishment, yet we treat it as if it were an anomaly in the way we grandstand over it. I'm not saying the birth of a baby or graduation is not to be celebrated or honored! I am saying that I think the celebration itself has upstaged and over-exaggerated the accomplishment.

I read an obituary today of an 81 year old man. It said he married his wife at the home of her parents. That reminded me of how marriages were often done back in the day: A quick intimate little ceremony with the local pastor or justice of the peace, with only parents and sisters and brothers present, and, after a piece of cake, off they went on their two-day honeymoon, if that. There weren't entire magazines geared to the one-day Bridal event, and people didn't have to hold off buying a house due to their extravagant honeymoon! (This is even funnier when you consider that most couples have lived together before they marry. It's not like their life together is just now being forged.) No, people got married without a lot of brouhaha and that was that. Not anymore. Celebrating anything has grown to hysterical levels (remember the trampling death of the Wal-Mart security guard last November by Black Friday "Christmas" shoppers?).

That's why I did a boycott so-to-speak of Mother's Day this year. I felt silly dedicating an entire day to me, as if what I do every day entitles me to this sort of honor. I'm honored every day simply by the privilege of living with the husband and sons that I have, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Getting all worked up over one day to somehow focus attention on the fact that I'm a mom seems fake and forced. I told my sons to never ever just go out and buy me something because the world tells them it’s Mother's Day. Whether it's Christmas, July 4th, Halloween, Father's Day or New Year's (there's a new one every year), the world is asking "What are you going to do?" and "How will you top last year?" There's an implied expectation -- a mandate really -- that this day shall be duly and extravagantly noted!

I've certainly been guilty of it myself, especially before I became a Christian. My hope then was put in the next experience, not Jesus. I needed the material stuff to celebrate with because otherwise there would be no meaning to the holiday or event. My life without Jesus was such that if I didn't have another event to look forward to, I had nothing to look forward to. Events kept life interesting and distracted me from that empty feeling inside. In addition, without God, holidays and graduations were also meaningless unless they had lots of food, parties, gifts, and drinks. Without God, we pump up milestones -- as common and universal as they may be -- with pomp and circumstance and keep raising the bar to get our fix.

God, for me, has made much of that larger-than-life celebrating seem silly and shallow. I think it's because over-the-top events block people's view of God's role in the event. The larger the pig roast, the bigger the tent, the more professional the band, then the more we see ourselves and not God. We slap ourselves and our kids on the back and take all the credit for whatever it is we're celebrating. God is not in it and therefore receives no credit.

I know now that God gave me my kids. God is what got our family through to this point and He's the one I honor every wedding anniversary and birthday because only because of Him were my husband and I and our marriage and family re-born. I now know that God is the giver of my sons' talents and abilities, not me, and God is the one who will bring about marriage for them if He sees fit. God is the one who will also grace them with children: children that will be entrusted to my sons if God has that in the plan. Yes, we humans have something to do with it. We obey and use the talents and pray. But we do that through our faith in Jesus Christ--not of ourselves--and we do it to glorify God, not ourselves. Our faith in God allows us to mark the days and years in simple thanksgiving, joy and worship without, really, all the fuss.

I guess I'm losing the ability to make a big deal out of a fairly normal life event. Instead, I'm increasingly seeing the Grace of God -- not just in the milestone accomplishment -- but in each day leading up to it and every other day that follows. Because without God, when the tent is taken down and the after-party debris is bagged and put out to the curb, people will once again feel empty. So they'll look at the calendar and begin to plan. And look forward to. And the cycle will continue to repeat. Life without God truly is life lived in an event mentality.

This Sunday, my son and the Class of 2009 and their families will attend a Baccalaureate church service in their honor. And I am exceedingly thankful for the school for supporting this. At this gathering, God will be the focus. God will be honored and praised for each and every student there. If it were up to me, this would be the sole marking of graduation. It's reverent, it's joyful and it celebrates the God without whom there would be no graduates, no graduation, and no accomplishments whatsoever.

"Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together." Psalm 34:3

"But, 'let him who boasts boast in the Lord.'" 2 Corinthians 10:17

"...for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." Philippians 2:13

Biblical Authority or Re-Incarnation?

I just received an email from a media company inviting me to participate in a "beta-group development project" for church outreach whose stated values are "missional, incarnational, and transformational." This company states on their website that they have "a covert agenda to fuel a revolution in how the world views and responds to the Church."

In other words, they want to test ideas and strategies that will lure more people into church. And it's obvious they'll try just about anything to do it. After reading over their "Wow factor" marketing plans, which include "viral components" (sounds dangerous) "movement-making strategies," "licensed media tools," "wrap-around (synergistic) withreach strategies," "holistic social-ministry solutions" and "constant additions, updates, and revisions," I’m sorry, but I'm not their guy.

See, I'm just not into the jumping-through-hoops-to-provide-an-experience church trend. I'm glad the "beta-group" folks factored in "constant updates and revisions" because when you try to be all things to all people all of the time, you end up being nothing. And that leads to a constant returning to the blackboard to find out what went wrong. And here's what goes wrong when a church attempts to be the all in all instead of God: they attract and cater to self and a "what's in it for me” attitude. And when you have hundreds of individuals at the feeding trough who only want to be placated and made to feel comfortable within the context of a "spiritual experience," nobody is transformed, nobody grows and nobody learns the Truth. And people wonder why "church" or "religion" isn't working for them. And churches wonder why people leave.

The churches that follow the "paradigm" of trying to please everyone usually say they are doing it out of a desire for unity. But unity in what? When you have hundreds of self-centered attendees obsessed with what kind of spiritual experience the church can offer them individually, you have hundreds of different ideas of what "church" and "faith" should be. How does a pastor say anything when he's trying to appease 100+ attendees who are there simply to see Christ, faith, religion or church re-incarnated into THEIR vision of what Christ, religion and faith should be?

They may be singing Kumbaya, but it will eventually be through clenched teeth.

John MacArthur, in a sermon on his Grace to You website titled "The Christian's Authority: Experience or the Word" explains:

"There is a mentality today that, in the Church, has a great desire for unity and love and I like that if it's Biblical unity and Biblical love; and we want everybody to be one in its brotherhood and happiness and light and let's hold hands and all that and that's good and that's wonderful; but what happens is in this great run for unity and this great run for love nobody's allowed to say anything about truth without being considered somebody who's divisive.

What's so scary about it is that no experience ever really has to stand the test of Scripture. The experience itself is okay. Whatever your experience, that's fine; and then we don't worry about the Bible, we had an experience.

It is mysticism and mysticism is this. Here's a little definition. "It is the comprehension of a spiritual idea by intuition rather than revelation. It is the comprehension of a spiritual idea by intuition or feeling or self-generated thought, rather than receiving a revelation." So that Christianity, instead of being a response to the Word of God, is a whole pile of experiences and then the Word of God is twisted around to make it fit the experiences; and that's nothing but sub-Christian mysticism.

Now listen, if you were gonna build a Biblical theology, write down all true principles about God in the world, would you rather do it by adding up the experiences of a whole lot of people or would you rather do it by seeing what this book says? Imagine trying to build a Biblical theology of all the truth there is about God from the experiences of people. What a mess. What a mishmash. You'd have as many views as you have - what - people. That's why God gave us an authoritative revelation.

Now, there are only two approaches to truth; Biblically, you either take the Bible as the historical objective record or you go with the personal subjectivism and chaos. The historical, objective kind of approach is what is called creedal theology. It is based on creeds - Jesus Is, God Is, the Holy Spirit Is, God said, boom bang. It's all creedal and we would call it a theology of the Word. But the personal subjective one is simply intuitive, "Well, I think and I feel - well, to me God is - well, I think that God is -" and what you've got there is a theology of experience. But the difference is that the theology of experience is authored by man and the theology of the Word is authored by God and who knows best about Himself, God.

When the whole mentality is experience, experience and phenomena and feeling and emotion, then everybody who gets that certainly can't be told they're wrong and so there's no checks on it. There's no way to stop it. It just runs wild. It's like the America today - Christianity in America is literally drowning in a sea of subjectivism and mysticism and experience.

The mystical experience becomes the determiner of truth." (End of quote by John MacArthur)

The Bible predicts this very thing:

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." 2 Timothy 4:3-4

The Kjos Ministries Website further explains:

"These days, the word "incarnational" can be heard in most denominations and postmodern churches. It's at the heart of the new, experiential form of Christianity--the transformative movement attempting to unify the world under the banner of the evolving "Church."

It calls for a non-offensive form of the "gospel." No longer is the emphasis on God's Word and personal regeneration through the Holy Spirit. The new emphasis is primarily on collective experience and unifying community service. To avoid conflict, the true Gospel -- including the "offense of the Cross" -- must be banned along with other divisive Scriptures."

The Bible clearly warns against adding to or taking away from Scripture:

"I warn everyone who hears the prophesy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book." Revelation 22:18-19

John MacArthur sums it up when he says,

"You see, it is a question of authority. What is the authority in the believer's life? Is it his experience or is it God's Word?"

Which Jesus have we decided to follow and worship and live according to? The incarnate Jesus in the Bible, or the Jesus re-incarnated by humans in order to appease and allow everyone to be their own mini-God, "having a form or godliness but denying its power" (2 Timothy 3:5).

This all takes me back to the wise words of my Christian mentor who, when I disagreed with Biblical authority (without having read the Bible) she told me that I needed to go and read what the Bible actually said. She admonished me that if I was going to call myself a Christian, I needed to accept Biblical authority. Kicking and screaming, I did just that. And lo and behold, I found that Biblical authority--the Bible's Truth about Jesus and faith and the body of Christ and church -- to be far superior to my naive, self-satisfied, narcissistic and haughty opinion of the Bible that I'd formed based on faulty intuition, hearsay and second-hand information.

Through Biblical authority, NOT an "incarnational, experiential or missional" worship service, I found transformation, a changed heart and life, and a love and compassion for others. Through the authority of the Bible I was finally freed from the oppressive bondage of self and the ball and chain of constantly trying to re-incarnate myself, my life, my faith, my religion and my God. Only through the authority of Scripture did I come to know the Truth that set me free once and for all.


"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:31-32

"For he 'has put everything under his feet.' Now when it says that 'everything' has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all." 1 Corinthians 15:27-28

"All Scripture is God-breathed..." 2 Timothy 3:16

"'I am the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God, 'who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.'" Revelation 1:8

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." Revelation 22:13

Separation from God

We need to stop defining sin as the thing that will lead people to burn in flames for eternity. Who can ever think they'll be so bad as to wind up with that as their destiny? Since many people can't accept that they're bad enough to burn in hell forever, they simply decide there is no such thing as sin or hell, like I did for many years.

What, actually, is sin and hell? Sin is what separates us from God. Hell is the separation. Both are a choice we freely make. We are the ones who choose to commit the sin and live in the separation.

You or someone you know might say, (as I did for many years) "I haven't chosen to separate myself from God!" (Meaning, "I'm not a sinner!") Well, let's look at that. Have you ever lied? Have you ever said something about someone that wasn’t true...or exaggerated the truth about someone so as to make it a false account? Have you ever repeated gossip? Have you ever secretly held a grievance against someone, and instead of going to that person and discussing it, you told your sister, co-workers, husband and the whole neighborhood? Have you ever hated someone? Have you ever lusted after someone, even secretly so that nobody ever knew? Have you or are you disobeying your parents or another authority figure out of stubbornness and pride? Have you ever physically or emotionally hurt someone with your words or hands? Have you ever cheated...on a spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, tax form, expense account? Have you ever taken advantage of someone's weakness for your own gain? Have you ever knowingly exited the grocery store with an item that the clerk failed to scan? Have you dug up perennials from national parks and other public lands and planted them in your garden? Have you looked at porn on the computer? Have you gotten into an email relationship on the computer behind your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend's back? Have you ever not accepted someone's apology or forgiven them? Have you lied to your spouse or boss about a money matter to protect yourself in a wrong transaction, or to cover up over-spending? Have you ever shopped on EBay or played computer games while at work, on the company's time and dime? Are you addicted to drugs or alcohol? Do you binge eat or drink? The list goes on and on. This is all sin. It's what separates us from God in this life and from God in the next. Everyone will live in eternity. It's just that some will live with God in heaven and others will live separate from Him, in the place of eternal separation: hell. We choose. It's up to us to decide.

If you've read this far, I hope you're seeing that none of us is worthy on our own to stand before God. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). So do we throw in the towel and give up? No. We look to the Savior, Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty in full for our sin when He died on the Cross for you and for me and for all people. Just as we can freely choose to stay separated from God, we can also choose to be reconciled to Him through Jesus Christ. It's up to us to decide.

We mustn't let the devil-with-a-pitchfork picture of hell blind us to what sin and separation from God really is. It's easy to create a false sense of security by telling ourselves that hell is reserved for the baddest of the bad, and not for us. But picture, for a moment, hell without flames, and without the little red ghoul and hot coals. Picture it instead as a frustrating, lonely, dysfunctional, non-progressing place where you strive and strive and strive and get nowhere. Maybe that vision of hell looks a bit like life. If that kind of life is possible here and now, why won't it be possible in eternity?

Many people live separated from God. Many of them even attend church, like I did. They're Methodists, Presbyterians, UCC'ers, Dutch Reformed, Catholic and on and on--but they continue to live separated from God because they haven't personally and intentionally allowed Christ into their life. Some people think they're Christian because they live in a "Christian" nation or because it was handed down generation to generation. Others believe that because they worship nature, they worship God. Others are experts in Biblical Studies and teach at Christian seminaries but have only head knowledge: they haven't made the 12 inch connection from their head to their heart (thanks, Pastor Steve, for that illustration). They are still God of their lives. They live without ever having made the decision to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and to live according to His ways.

In John 3:3-21, Jesus talks to Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. Today Nicodemus, in spite of his own high status of teacher, would be considered a ”seeker,” as he comes to Jesus under cover of night to get some answers. Here is their conversation:

Jesus says, “’I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.’
'How can a man be born when he is old?' Nicodemus asked. 'Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!'
Jesus answered, 'I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.'
'How can this be?' Nicodemus asked.
'You are Israel's teacher,' said Jesus, 'and do you not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven--the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.'"

Condemned. That's a pretty heavy word, and it sounds like we're being punished. But if you read the above verses closely, you see that the condemnation is of our own choosing: we are the ones who punish ourselves by choosing to ignore Jesus and the light He brings us into and instead choose the darkness of separation from God. 2 Peter 3:9 tells us that it is God's desire that none shall perish. Yet though He calls, many ignore. Though He calls, many reject. Though He calls, many choose to remain separated from Him.