Without Him We Fall
It’s been a while since I’ve posted on the Salt blog. Teaching Bible studies, moving, changing jobs, and life has consumed my time. Often I get the notion to write something, but my attitude won’t exhibit grace, so I write half of my thought and then ask myself, “does what I’m saying glorify the Lord?” I find myself unsure and then I delete it and move on. I want to speak about this a little bit. If you are a self-proclaiming Christian does your life proclaim Christ? When people see you do they see Jesus or do they see a hypocrite that has a bible verse slapped on their social media, car mirror, window, or in a tattoo. Something to the effect of Phil 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” or Jeremiah 29:11-13 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope”. Again Matthew 7:1 Judge not, that you be not judged” or John 13:13 Ask for anything in my name or Romans 8:28 all things work together for good”. Look this list goes on and on. Are we taking scripture out of context and twisting it for our own purposes? There was someone in the bible that did this same thing. Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” Genesis 3:4-5 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Another is Matthew 4:5-7 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “‘On their hands, they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”. Listen, if you proclaim to be a Christian yet you look no different than the world around you then what are you? If you have these verses tattooed on your body or car and yet are flipping off the guy that just cut you off in traffic what are you telling people about yourself. If you go to work and your mouth is a yuck mouth just like your fellow workers what are you projecting? If you are doing Facebook reels and posting gross stuff on Facebook but your profile says you follow Jesus what does this say about you? Look we all have let things slip out of our mouths, we’ve all looked at things we shouldn’t be looking at. We all fall short of the Glory of God. But we hate that sin in our life we pray and beg God for help to clean up our life. We confess those sins to God and turn our life around. God is good to forgive, God is full of mercy and grace. We just have to believe and ask for help so that we can glorify our Father who is in heaven. I’m going to write a second part to this because this all can’t be explained in a short blog post. But I like the way the Apostol Paul lays out the human condition in Romans, not just that of a nonbeliever in Romans 1-3 but that of a believer also in 7. Romans 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? We need our Lord Jesus every day, every moment because without Him we fall. Our actions matter, what comes out of our mouths matters and we will be held accountable for those things. Repent and ask God for help, He’s good to forgive.