God: Judge or Pardoner?

Once upon a time, a man was brought to trial. He was charged with the crime of theft and murder for breaking into a house months before, killing the mother and her two children inside while they slept so that he could rob them. The only surviving member of the family was the father, who happened to be working late the night this happened.

The evidence was clear to all in the courtroom that the man on trial was guilty. There was the DNA found at the crime scene and on the man's clothes that could not be explained away. There was the surveillance video from the security camera the home-owner had set up. There was the stolen items that were found in the man's own house. There was even testimony from the man's friends about his boasting of all that he had done. As if all of that wasn't enough, there was this man's extensive criminal record. There seemed to be no doubt as to what the outcome of this trial would be.

It only took the jury about half an hour to come back with the verdict that all had been expecting: guilty on all counts. Many shook the hand or hugged the grief-stricken father. Cries of relief sprang up all over the courtroom. Sentencing was to be just a few days later.

When the trial reconvened for the judge to pass his sentence down to this man, the courtroom was shocked into silence as the judge began to speak.

"I, as judge in this trial, hereby set aside the verdict and declare that this man is free to go," declared the judge, pounding his gavel as sobs and screams rang out. The father had to be visibly restrained from charging the front of the courtroom.

As spectators streamed out of the room, many were visibly shaken and in interviews accused the judge of being bribed by the defense, of being corrupt, incompetent, senile and most called for his resignation. The only ones who seemed to be happy at the outcome were the defendant, his lawyers and family members, who jubilantly danced around the room after the sentence was read.

What comes to mind when you read this story? Do you put yourself in the victim's shoes, or the defendant's shoes? What do you think of the judge in this story? Wouldn't you agree with the victim and his family at the incompetency of this judge?

Day after day in our society people violate God's laws and get outraged when anyone dares to suggest that the wages of sin are clear. When it comes to our own sin, we put ourselves in the place of the thief and murderer, calling for God to overturn His own law on our behalf and set us free. Most of the time we cite things like being a good citizen or prior good behavior. Or, we declare that our crimes don't have victims or really aren't "that bad."

Our God *is* a just God, unlike the one in the fake "trial" described above. He has set a moral law in place and the consequences of breaking this law are clear. The evidence is all there, the witnesses are all around us, and the victims of our crimes are littered throughout our lives (there is no such thing as sinning in a vacuum). When we sit in the defendant's chair, it is clear that we are guilty. And, when we are the ones sitting there, we like to think that our crimes don't deserve what God, the best judge ever, might sentence us to.

Yet, if we place ourselves in the victim's roll, we *want* God to be a fair and unbiased judge, meting out justice on our behalf (and usually we want justice to be in our lifetime so we can delight in our enemy's punishment). We would, in the case of my fake trial, cry out in outrage over the injustice and travesty of a judge who would pardon someone so clearly guilty. Yet, we ask it of Him when the tables are turned.

God's justice is not like ours, though. The punishment for all of our crimes is the same: eternity apart from Him. Period. Apart from God Himself intervening, an unredeemed man cannot spend eternity in the presence of the holiness of God. It would be an utter abomination.

So, there has to be a way. There has to be a way for men and women who are clearly guilty to be made righteous. It is absurd to think that the God of the universe would take the time to create us, give us free will to do both good and evil and not have a plan in place (even before He created us) to allow us to come to Him.

Let me take you back to the courtroom...

"I, as judge in this trial, hereby set aside the verdict and declare that this man is free to go," declared the judge in our first trial. But, what if that was not the end of the story?.....

"The law is clear, there must be punishment for this crime," said the judge standing up and taking off his robes. "So, instead, I will take the punishment for the crime that this man has committed, and serve the sentence on his behalf so that he can go free."

Turning to the defendant the judge lays out his conditions for his new sentence, "If you chose to accept this gift you must commit yourself to following me with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength.

And I will know you have committed yourself, you cannot lie, I will know. I will know because your life will be changed. You will walk out of here and be a different man from now on. Yes, you will stumble, but your heart and your life will reflect a desire to change and be like me. This isn't a one-time thing. This isn't a one part of your life thing. This is for the rest of your life. This is everything given over to me. In fact, I will require regular meetings with you, I will require others around you to help you out, and I will require you to read up on a few things so that you know what I expect. I may even require you to leave some things, people, or ideas behind that might cause you to go back to your life of crime.

If you agree to this, the gift I give you today will never be taken away. In fact, I will see to it that you never serve a day of your sentence here, and should you ever be accused of a crime again, I will see to it that you never wind up in anyone's courtroom but mine. What do you say?"

A wise man would say, "YES I will do it!"

Let us all remember just what it is we have been saved from and our lives be found worthy of the sacrifice that the judge over all gave so that we could be set free. For God is fully Judge, but He is also fully Grace and Mercy.

Blessings,
Erin

At the End

I seriously doubt anyone at the end of their life ever thought: "Boy, I sure wish I'd watched more TV or spent more time at work or went to more movies or kept my house cleaner or drank more alcohol." But how many of us when we do reach the end of our lives will say: "I wish I'd loved God more or I wish I'd served more or gave my life away more."

May I live my life so that at the end of my life I can say: "I gave all I had. I am spent." I want to hear "Well done good and faithful servant."

What are you spending your life on?

Blessings,
Erin

Supernatural Equipping

"If you only do what you're good at, you lose out on the opportunity for God to supernaturally equip you." -Mark Anderson

I wrote a couple of months ago about some decisions on whether to stay in Tacoma and be involved with a job offer (not the zoo) here or get involved with more missions stuff. This decision is now coming down to the wire. I will most likely have to make my decision within the next week or two.

To be honest, the job here in Tacoma is going to require of me things I feel like I cannot do. It brings up a ton of fear of failure in me. Some of this is healthy and good: the second I feel I can do something, I have no need for the Lord. When I think about doing this particular job, I feel like I won't be able to do it AT ALL without a miracle from the Lord. I am going to need a team of people around me, helping me, training me, on a team with me, guiding me and leading me if I do this job in Tacoma.

When I put the fear of stepping out into something so much bigger than me aside, I actually am really excited for this job opportunity. There is MUCH about it that stirs me deeply. This is a real opportunity to impact lives here in Tacoma in a significant way.

I don't know for sure what I will end up doing, but I do know this: if I do take this job in Tacoma, there is NO WAY I can do this without supernatural equipping.

Blessings,
Erin

Character

The truest test of one's character is not how one behaves when things are going well, but how one chooses to react in times of trial and struggle. Real strength is shown in choosing to do the right thing instead of the easy thing.

Prayer

I fully believe one should not pray about something unless one is willing to DO something about what is being praying about. Prayer gives you the heart of Christ, and that is a heart of action.


Jesus, let the things that break your heart break mine!

Erin

Cardboard Butterfly: What are You Pursuing?

http://www.tangle.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c3a131a58d87198fae51

Quote by Carman

I heard this quote today from a friend, quoting the singer Carman:

"The single greatest cause for athesim today are Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and then walk out the door, and continue on with their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds ubelievable."

I believe that ultimately we are responsible for our own choices before the Lord, Christian or not. While our walk, or lack of walk, before the Lord may be more of an excuse than an actual reason to believe or not, the fact of the matter is that we cannot continue to live the way we've always lived and expect an unbelieving world to see their own need for Jesus.

Blessings,
Erin

Paul Washer Again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G1pItPqBdE

The Pursuit of Happiness

Michael Jackson died last week.

For most of us this is not new news. In fact, it has been almost four days since his death. Based on the news coverage of his death you might think it just happened. If you didn't know who he was, you might also think based on the amount of coverage that he was some sort of important man who had say won a Nobel Peace Prize, or invented some sort of life-changing contraption, or even a world leader.

However, none of these descriptions are true. Instead, Michael Jackson was a pop star. Granted, he was a very successful and very good pop star. But he was just a pop star nonetheless.

I have watched this media frenzy play out at various times: Britney Spears' breakdown, the divorce of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, etc. etc. In fact, our society seems to be increasingly mesmerized and outright addicted to following the lives (and deaths) of these men and women. Heck, now people don't have to even be a celebrity for us to be addicted to their lives. There are whole reality shows designed just so that we can be vouyers into other's lives. The more drama the better!

I am sure smarter people than I have their theories on all of this, but I have one too. My theory has to do with the world view that our society has. Our world view is written right into our Declaration of Independence: "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

This world view is actually not a new thing. It comes straight from the Greek and Roman civilizations that so many of our laws and philosophies come from. Another word for this is "hedonism."

Hedonism is the philosophy that pleasure or that which has pleasant consequences is intrinsically good and therefore what humans should pursue.

The Greeks were masters at hedonism; conquering people after people, enslaving them and taking their wealth so that they could live a lifestyle of the pursuit of pleasure. They had other people do their work so that they could spend time doing things that brought them pleasure and happiness. Some of the descriptions of their society are eerily similar to the lifestyle that so many of us in America are hot in our own pursuit of.

The problem with a hedonistic society is that eventually it falls apart. People quit serving in the military: it's not that fun. They quit running for office unless there is power and wealth attached to it: politics become corrupt. People quit caring for and helping each other: it might take money and time away from "fun." They become addicted to increasing amounts of pleasure: the simple things that once brought pleasure are soon not enough and people must have more, more, more to satisfy. Things that are inconvenient or get in the way of happiness and pleasure lose their importance. Sound familiar?

With a corrupt government, a weak military and a people who are living only for themselves, the society is bound for collapse. This happens not just because other societies can come in and take over (like the Roman empire did to the Greeks) but also because the society eventually runs out of people to do the actual work and the resources to sustain the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed.

You may be asking yourself what does this have to do with Michael Jackson and Britney Spears?

Both Michael Jackson and Britney Spears have epitomised this notion of hedonism. They were insanely wealthy (at least at one point or another) and lived lifestyles of extravagance and oppulence. They are and were what many of us aspire to be: rich and famous.

We as hedonistic pursuers ourselves, and most of us NOT rich and famous are looking for the next "high" to entertain us, to captivate us. Michael Jackson and Britney Spears captivated our attention in life, and the depth to which they fell captivates us as well. We found pleasure in their lives, and because we are hedonists who are not content with the things that used to entertain, we find increasingly more pleasure in their "fall."

Think about it. Horror movies are getting more horrific. There is increasing amounts of sex on TV to the point that even commercials are titilating. The average child sees 200,000 acts of violence on TV before age 18. It only makes sense that all the rumors, gossip and innuendo surrounding the life of one of the most famous men in the world would feed into our society's need for stimulation. Eventually we'll all get bored, until the next celebrity fall hits the airwaves. I can almost guarantee, though, that whatever it will be will have to be bigger and badder for anyone to notice.

Our attention is no longer captivated by things that really matter: the half a billion babies that have been aborted because they are inconvenient to the mother, the kids forcibly involved in the sex trade in many countries, the kids used as child soldiers, the countries under thumbs of dictators so ruthless that they would rather let their own people starve then accept help, the oppression and abuse of women in muslim countries in the name of God....I could go on and on.

No, we don't want to think about those things because they are not fun, and they don't bring pleasure. They are hard to think about, and even harder to try to do something about.

This is not just a society problem. This is a church problem too. We are just as hedonistic as anyone else in our country. Spin it anyway you want, most of us are pursuing the same goals as everyone else in our country. There is so much evidence for it: our divorce rate, our lack of involvement in any cause that might be on the Lord's heart, our McMansions/health and wealth movement, what we do with our free time, the things we hold as important....none of it looks a lot different than anyone else.

Oh friends, when will we wake up and see? Wake up before it's too late. We should not be affected by a world view we should be the ones AFFECTING it!

Blessings,
Erin

Rescue is Coming

A few weekends ago at the zoo I had the opportunity to do a weekend program that involved working with 5 teens. This program is a 2-day program and three of the kids involved had previously been at a different program earlier this year.

One of the gals, I'll call her Madison, I found out lives with her grandmother. I was unable to find out why she lives with her grandmother and not her biological parents. What was clear, however, was that she has a huge love deficit.

I know this because also along for the program was a slightly older boy, I'll call Aaron who also had his own issues, the least of which was that at 15 he believed he knew more about animals, ecology and the zoo than I did. However, this boy, in less than 24-hours had captivated the heart of this girl to the point that in the middle of the second day of this program I had to take them aside and tell them that their displays of affection were inappropriate for the program we were doing.

It broke my heart.

I watched this girl all weekend, so starved for love, so searching for acceptance and identity, see this boy and decide that she wanted him for herself. I watched it all happen and felt so powerless to do anything about it.

I firmly believe that in the heart of every person is a deep, deep desire for love and acceptance. Outside of the Lord, we look to get that anywhere we can.

For the kids of this generation, who come from broken and horrific circumstances, and who have been told the message that if it feels good you should pursue it, the need for rescue from a savior who can restore and redeem them is more tangible than ever.

Yet, how can she be rescued if no one brings her the good news?

Romans 10:14
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

Jesus did not come to save us from the World but to send us INTO it.

I firmly believe that we cannot follow Jesus and have growing revelation of who He is and not have a growing heart for the last, the lost and the least. If we are spending more time in front of the TV, spending more money on Starbucks, praying more for ourselves then the last, lost, least, then we are deceived and we do not have the love of Christ in us. If we are spending more time with our friends or even in a prayer room than we do with the last, lost and least, then we are deceived.

As for me, and my friend "Madison," I am praying for her. I am praying that she would encounter the true saving love of Jesus. I was not the messenger, but I pray that someone else will be.

Blessings,

Erin