11-18-2020

 To Trade Shame for Glory

He was empty, vacuous, and hollow. Eminently needy, cruel, moody, sarcastic, bitter and cynical. This man was more like a shadow, a disintegrating husk, coming apart at the seams, as if his body and mind had so rotted that they seemed less than human, brutish, irrational, foolish, and stubbornly wicked. What little remained of knowledge and wisdom, skills and talents only served to further pervert and corrupt his behavior so that he did exactly what he knew was most vile and loved doing it. Not only that, but he convinced himself that by meeting certain arbitrary standards of decency in comparison to other fiends, and by hating and punishing himself cruelly, he had properly accounted for his own evil. This “crowning achievement” allowed him such pride that he believed sincerely that he didn’t need to change and he didn’t need anyone’s help, and he was running his life exactly as it should be run. Because after all, nothing cruel he could inflict on himself in the way of declining help from others, depriving himself of pleasures and speaking hate to himself could be anything other than deserved. This kind of reasoning he employed to make sure that he could continue living life his way, the ultimate purpose of everything he did. He was a self-idolater, convinced that no one else could be trusted to direct his life, and constantly working to rationalize his own self-tyranny. Rationalize must be used loosely here, for there is little rationality in destroying oneself for the sake of engaging in vile activities. It would be more rational for him to speak the truth to himself, that he exists for more than self-worship. He exists to bring glory to God, by humbly accepting the Gospel.

To Fall on Mercy

He could not climb up to it. He couldn’t earn it by exemplary actions. He couldn’t claim to invent it, presume upon it or demand it as his right. He couldn’t plan it and strategize it, controlling it into his grasp. He couldn’t make it his own power through study and analysis. He couldn’t negotiate it into his own plans. He could only fall on it in surrender, humility, trust and hope. After he received this mercy, he could not take credit for it, pay it back, prove he deserved it all along, act as if he deserved it more than anyone else, or for a moment pretend that it was no big deal. Nor could he act like he only needed it once, and then life would be just fine without it. No, he gladly gave credit where it was due, to God, who had every right to condemn and punish him for violating the holiness of God, but freely chose to bring him back by punishing His Son, Jesus Christ and giving the man what Jesus deserved, a clean record. And this mercy, forever ensured by the punishment on Jesus and the resurrection that proved Jesus’s worth, he continually applied to himself every day, so that he could sit in high places, intimately knowing God. Sometimes, he would forget these things, but God put Himself in the man’s heart, the Holy Spirit, so that he would be reminded and return to this mercy again. This mercy didn’t stop him from ever sinning again, but it stirred his affections for God, so that obedience became more enjoyable and glorious, and sin became more boring and horrifying. When he did sin, he was welcomed back by mercy through repentance.