There is a contemporary Christian song from a group named Casting Crowns called Slow Fade. In this song we are reminded that the descent into a sinful life is not something that just suddenly happens but is more of a gradual process, one sin at a time, one bad choice after another until eventually we just don’t see the light as clearly as we once did. You see, nothing can ever separate us from the love of God, but we can be separated from the light of God in our lives. The good news is that there is only one thing that can separate us from the light of God. The bad news is that that one thing is something we all enjoy to some extent. What am I talking about? I am talking about sin. Sin is the only thing that can separate us from the light of God. The fact is that if sin was miserable or something that caused us pain it would be easy to avoid and not be much of a challenge for us at all. Now I don’t know if any of you have a struggle to avoid sin, but I certainly can speak for myself when I say it is a significant challenge for me. If we believe in Paul’s writings it the Bible, we find it written that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So it is logical to conclude that this is something we all struggle with.
The writer of the song Slow Fade has published a video of his interpretation of Psalm 1 and what the song Slow Fade meant to him. From this video, we learn a great tool to use in trying to avoid sin in our lives. Listen to the words from the New International Version while we explore about them in more detail.
“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.” Think of this statement as a three part way to avoid sin. We start with Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. This statement helps us to remember to avoid walking in the way we know that sin exists. Temptation comes in many forms for each of us and there are certainly some similarities. Some of us may find temptation in material things where we withhold our right tithes in order to buy that new car or that new TV. Maybe it is the things we must do to climb or sometimes claw our way up the corporate ladder. Yet others might find temptation in the form of a TV ad for Victoria’s Secret. Whatever that temptation, the best way to eliminate it is to avoid altogether the circumstances that bring weakness. This might mean just staying away from the car lots or the electronics stores. Avoiding is definitely a sound strategy but we will often find many challenges in doing that. Most people would find it challenging to eliminate TV altogether or eliminate trips to Circuit City or WalMart. This brings us to the second part of the first line of the Psalm. This part of the line says “… or stand in the way of sinners.” It is not always possible to completely avoid walking in the way of temptation in our everyday lives. Often we are forced to walk in the way of those temptations in order to experience life. This second phase of the fall to temptation occurs when we stop and stand in the way of sinners. This is when we see something during our walk and decide to stop and take a closer look. This is when we stop to get a better look at that new car or that new TV. This is when we keep our eyes open during those commercials. Then lastly we reach the final phase of the fall, “… or sit in the seat of mockers.” Suddenly as we start to feel more comfortable with stopping for a closer look, we find ourselves beginning to sit down in order to experience it more fully. This is when we start to talk to the sales person about cost, financing, and availability. Once we enter this third phase if you are anything like me, you might as well have already sinned because there is no return path. Once I enter the sit phase I am as good as done because I always find myself forgetting about God at that point.
Going back to the song Slow Fade, we find that our fall and sometimes surrender to temptation is a slower process where we go through the three phases and at each step our thinking gets a little more clouded and we begin to see things differently. It is a very slow process where our thinking in changed and we fail to see thinks as black and white anymore. We start to see things as shades of gray and lose our focus on the law of the lord.
Listen to these words from Slow Fade:
It's a slow fade when you give yourself away
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray Thoughts invade, choices made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
So you see, it is this slow process of the issues we consider black and white becoming more and more gray. We see this now in everyday life. The Bible is clear on many of the issues that are debated today yet we see Christians debating them as a fuzzy area in life and a personal choice rather than a sin against God. We are told clearly in the Bible to love the sinner not the sin yet we can see clear examples in our everyday life of Christians and in some cases even churches continuing to embrace the sin as well as the sinner.
So how do we avoid falling into this trap? Again, the Psalm offers some sound advice.
“But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.”
It is a genuine delight for the law of the Lord that helps us to remain focused on it. In the days of early Judaism, the law was quite complex. When we engage in daily readings and regular study of God’s word, it becomes firmly rooted in our lives. We must treat God’s word as a tree planted by streams of water. A tree planted by streams of water can drink of those waters at will and becomes quite strong and grows in healthy ways. When we keep the Word of God close to us and are able to drink from it at will, we too will become strong and grow in healthy ways. Being firmly rooted in God’s word helps us to focus on those things that are important to God and makes it more difficult for our mind to stray and start thinking in shades of gray rather than clearly in black and white.
God’s laws for the early Jewish people are detailed in Deuteronomy and if you have never taken a good look at them I would encourage you to do that. I find it quite interesting to see all the laws that the people were tasked to conform to. If you read them, you quickly find that to comply with them all is definitely a challenge. Luckily when Jesus spoke to the followers he helped to simplify these for us a little. In Mark 12:28-31 we find these words:
“ One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." "Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.”
That definitely simplifies things for us. Love the lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. If we just take a moment to consider all of our decisions in life to weigh them against two simple questions, we would clearly see God’s guidance in our life. These two simple questions are:
1. Will what I am about to do demonstrate my love for God?
2. Will what I am about to do build up or break down others?
It took me 45 years to understand that it is not about me, it is about loving and honoring God. It is not I who should be glorified but rather God who should be glorified. I have found these two simple questions to be very useful in helping me to avoid actions that are contrary to God’s love. The challenge for me though is actually remembering to evaluate my actions using these two questions.
Does anyone remember the movie that was made by Mel Gibson called the Passion of the Christ. It was a very beautiful and moving movie about the events of Good Friday. Those who went to see walked away changed forever. How could you watch it and not grow in your spirituality and your faith? But how do you put that passion into your everyday life? That is very often easier said than done, but then again Jesus never told us that living life as a Christian would be easy.
In the book, Experiencing the Passion of Christ, John McArthur tells of a father in his church that discovered his little girl had shoplifted a book from the church bookstore. The two of them set up an appointment for the little girl to see the pastor.
The pastor asked the little girl what had happened, and she acknowledged taking the book -- acknowledged knowing that it was wrong -- said that she was sorry -- said that she would never do it again.
Then they talked about an appropriate punishment. Would it be appropriate for the girl to pay the five-dollar cost of the book? She agreed that it would. Would it be appropriate to tack on another fifteen-dollars as a punishment? She agreed that it would -- but the pastor could see the fear in her eyes. She had stolen the book because she didn't have five-dollars. How in the world would she ever get twenty-dollars?
But then, after establishing an appropriate penalty, the pastor pulled out his checkbook and wrote a check for the full amount. The little girl was surprised. The pastor then explained, "I'm going to pay your penalty so you don't have to. Do you know why I'd do that?" The little girl had no idea. He said, "Because I love you, because I care about you.... And please don’t ever forget this: That's how Jesus feels about you too, except even more."
I find this story very moving because it forces me to remember the pain and suffering Jesus endured as a payment for our sins, for my sins. And He did it because he loves us. No other reason, just because He loves us. He loves us unconditionally just as we are. When someone loves you that much, you naturally want to please them with your actions. Look at what we do in the name of love for our family. We all serve our families in many ways. For some this service is taking care of them when they are sick, for others it is feeding them when they are hungry, and for others still it might be giving them an interested ear to listen to them in times of trouble. We serve our family members because we love them and we love them without condition. Just because our children do things we are not particularly happy about does not stop us from loving them. However, for some people, their children find it easier and easier to just not call or visit anymore because they somehow feel the need to live up to their parents’ expectations. Rather than take the chance of being chastised by their parents, they choose to completely turn their back on them and just never visit again. Of course, this causes a lot of pain and suffering for the parents and even the children in the beginning. But as time goes on, the children go into a slow fade where their heart is hardened and in some cases they completely forget about their parents. I have known several people in my lifetime that have told me that they never want to see their parents again. For the parents though they never forget and they spend all the days of their lives waiting and hoping that their children will just come home so they can demonstrate love and forgiveness for them. Sadly some never get this homecoming and die waiting. This is exactly how God feels about us when we sin. Even though we did something that causes God pain, He still loves us and loves us without condition. He stands every day waiting for us to come home and receive his love, compassion, and mercy. He stands waiting to separate us from our sins and bring us into right relationship with Him through the shed blood of Christ. The problem is that we convince ourselves that God could not possibly love us anymore, that we have somehow committed that sin where God could not possibly love us anymore. The fact is God stands waiting for us and we can find all the evidence we need of that statement in the Bible through parables like the Prodigal Son and the Laborers in the Vineyard.
All we need to do to experience God’s love and mercy is to ask Him. Sounds way too simple. Somehow we think we must make restitution for our sins or repay God through good works to cancel out our sins. That kind of thinking is contrary to the teachings of Jesus. If we surround ourselves with God’s Word, we will clearly see that all who call upon the name of Jesus will be saved. It is though our faith and our faith alone that we are saved and made righteous through the name of Jesus. Yep, it sounds way too simple but it is true.
In the words of another song, In Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand. We find Jesus to be a rock, a solid foundation, the rock of the ages, on which to build our faith. Jesus is the immoveable rock that will always be there for us to rely on. As we call upon the name of Jesus our sins are forgiven and we are called to go and sin no more.
As we go through the trials of life and temptation raises its ugly head, and rest assured that it will, it is critical to our spiritual survival that we consider those two simple questions before taking any action:
1. Will what I am about to do demonstrate my love for God?
2. Will what I am about to do build up or break down others?
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