Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

• Romans 7:24-25

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

• 2 Corinthians 5:17

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.

• 1 John 3:4-10

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

• 1 John 1:8-10

I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

• Luke 5:32

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

• Revelation 12:10

The other day, I was either daydreaming or remembering a dream that I had.  I was in court, battling for my life.  Jesus was beside me as my advocate and Satan was at the table across, the prosecutor’s bench.

As Jesus pointed to God the Father, saying that this sin and that sin had been washed clean, Satan continued to bring up sins in my life, even some recent ones.

At that point, Jesus leaned in close to me and whispered in my ear.  “You are mine, but you really have made this a difficult case for me.”

Okay, those are the words that a true child of God will never hear, but I have had that picture portrayed by countless pastors over the past seven decades.  They picture the courtroom with God as the judge and Jesus as our counsel.  Satan is the accuser, but Jesus has the upper hand and shows that our record of sin has been washed away.

But really?

First of all, how can Satan accuse us at that point in the scheme of things?  He has been hurled down.

The more that I hear lately is that God has already washed our sins away.  In Revelation, there will be a separation for those whose name is in the Book of Life.  We will not go before the Great White Throne.  We will be judged by Jesus at the Judgment Seat where Jesus sees the works we have done and rewards us accordingly.  No problems with messy sins here or there.

But there is a problem in the modern church.  The word “sin” is a nasty word, and it hurts people’s feelings.  Well, it should.

And since pastors are afraid to use that word, why should forgiveness ever come up in conversation?

Somehow I lost something somewhere along the line.  I used to hear fire and brimstone sermons.  Even after the pastors toned that down, they made me squirm in the pew, uneasy with what I had done wrong or failed to do that was the right thing to do.  But those sermons are not heard that much anymore either.

I need a reality check here.  My construction is far from done.  I still make mistakes.  I hereby confess to making mistakes, and sometimes I spin around rather than turning to Jesus.

And what of the guy who only thinks of Jesus on Sunday morning.  “Hey, kids, get ready for Sunday school.  I’ll drop you off as usual on my way to the coffee shop.”

The church that I attend now used to have a Sunday school lesson at that coffee shop, but not anymore.  Have we simply given up?

If giving up is a sin, and I think it probably is, we have entire denominations who are in trouble.

I have miss quoted Beth Moore many times on this one.  “If you do not feel the warmth of God, it is because you have stepped away from the fire.”

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.