Sin and Sin No More

Gal. 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

While man deemed the day Easter, my New Year and Resurrection Sunday was a blessed one. It was nice to peek into facebook and see how others celebrated the day. While some sat the entire day just posting pics and enjoyed sharing and liking, others celebrated with family, some boasted of a church service, and some respectfully didn’t post at all. Beautiful.

As my Holy season has come to a close, I realized something along the journey. I realized I don’t belong anywhere. I realize I am waiting the day I get married and become a united couple in the eyes of the Lord, while the world spins and goes on in the mundane manner that they deem okay.

I’m curious to know, did anyone look up at the sky early on Saturday morning? Were they so consumed with a social outlet that they missed out on something phenomenal taking place in the sky? Yes, I’m talking about the total lunar eclipse. I stood in the cold of the morning just gazing skyward and thanking the Lord for the blessings in my life as I watched the brightly lit full moon disappear darkening the sky.

It has been an awesome month and looks to be an inspiring wonderful year. I can’t say that for the rest of the world or the people in it. This is the time of the year that I am away from the computer more than I am behind it. This is the time I relish spending my days outdoors drinking in the sunshine instead of indoors sipping from the silliness of a society gone astray.

I’m saddened to think that the Resurrection Sunday celebration, which is really the Ishtar/Easter holyday, is relinquished to a reason to drink, a time to get together with family and get drunk. Drink and be merry the Bible says, but man takes that as a reason and a green light to sin; just as the death on the cross is nothing more than the go ahead to sin. Maybe the fall of man is because as you wish people a Happy Easter, you are in turn releasing the very presence of Ishtar into the lives of many. Christmas too has the same sin-filled overtones. It is no longer a celebration of the birth of Christ just as Easter is no longer the rejoicing in the resurrection after His death on the cross.

I know you’re thinking that drinking is not a sin, and I’d have to say I don’t make the judgment call of what sin is and is not, but there is many scriptures pointing to the fact that the Lord is well aware of man and his drunkenness and punishment is what He’ll unleash in His way, not my way. Many will spin their own take on truth, that’s what man does to justify his sin.

Titus 2: 2 That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.

[4] That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

[6] Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded.

[12] Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

Luke 21:34 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

Jesus’ death was not an occasion to sin but I feel many see it that way. ‘He died for my sins so I can sin and sin and sin and He’ll forgive me.’ Jesus’ death was not an occasion to sin. His death did not mean, ‘go and sin some more and you’ll find me waiting to forgive.’ I think His death meant a time of transformation! The time of your sin was over, to go and sin no more.

I see all to often people knowingly sinning but relying on the Lord’s death on the cross as a means of forgiveness. “I know I’m sinning, but Jesus will forgive me.” And they go on and sin over and over again losing sight of the entire crucifixion and resurrection.

We live in a world where people hate and hate some more because they are justified in their hate. Jesus declared that we are to love our brother, love our neighbor. He didn’t mean just our family members or next-door neighbors; He meant the entire human race. We are to love and turn the other cheek; even our neighbor’s in a foreign country. Should we jump on the hate bandwagon because everyone else seems to be enjoying the ride? NO!

We are a world built on conformity. We human beings follow along like lost little puppies yearning for their mother’s milk. When she stops we all stop to drink what she has to offer. She leads and we follow. No longer does man seek the depths of his being because he is too consumed with being a falsified follower.

I do not sin so I can be forgiven. When I accepted Christ, I try each and every waking day to keep myself from falling victim to sin. I am changed, transformed by my Lord, not using His death as a means to continue sinning. Am I a sinner? Yes! What I thank Him for every day is dying for me and allowing me the chance to change and be more like Him. And this is why…“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:”

Alleuia Amen! May the Resurrection of Christ transform you all! Not just with your lips but with your very heart and soul!

Isaiah 29:13-14 (NIV)

The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."

On Writing...

Ex. 23: 7 Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.
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A writer’s life is a world in which reality and fantasy collide. Imagine if you will, your real world has everything you could possibly have imagined; a luscious home, a fancy car, friends ‘to die for’ and a perfect little family; everything moving along at a pace of normalcy.

Now imagine if you will the writer’s life/reality. Your home is lost, your car runs in a ditch, family is so far away the only contact is from a facebook message or email, and friends? Friends can be counted on one hand, minus the fingers.

Writer’s need to add to their writing many twists and turns; hills and mountains, sunny days amid the stormy gray days. That is what builds a story and wouldn’t ya know, it is diversity that strengthens your reality.

If I asked you to define me, normal would not be your first choice of words. When I’m writing, I don’t want my words to say ‘normal’ either. I want their to be as much conflict and bumps in the story, well planned I might add and well written, but not normal. Normal is almost an ugly word these days.

I want my writing to emulate my life, but I don’t want the facts to be so close to reality, that family members are screaming at you to take their character out of that story. Or to stop it right there.

We writer’s need to know where the line of fiction is. If we want to tell a bit of our brothers story, make the character a distant friend and toss in some grand fabrication and hopefully our brothers won’t see themselves in the character!

Now if it is non-fiction, then you better well be on another continent, so when your family reads it, there are no lines of communication open so they can lambaste you for all your ‘lies’ that you told about them.

It’s ironic, I’m putting together my memoirs, and even I think it is far fetched and I lived the darn life! Life is stranger than fiction is a quote I often think of as I continue the memoir. I have to keep in mind what reality has done to me, how it affected me, and the atrocities that entered my life, shaping me to who I am today.

I’d much rather shape a world of fiction, write out the highs and lows of a character, have her/him face challenges and hopefully in the end, triumph. Now that’s another question to ponder, should you always have a happy ending? I don’t know if a happy ending is what sells a story, but a complete story with a believable ending, one that fell into your lap and just had to do to make the story whole.

Not all endings are happy...just as in reality...not all decisions result in a happy ending. Writing is never cut and dry. It is write and write some more...

Job 21:34 How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?