What do cut fingers and snow have in common?

Great reminder from a slip of the hand

On this bright and sunny morning I set out to clean the cooktop in my kitchen. It appears my cleaning job last night was spotty at best. I guess I was just too caught up in the beauty of the falling snow. Yep that’s right…SNOW.

The region I live in typically doesn't see a great deal of snow. Sometimes it a few years between a good “snowman” building snow so we tend to enjoy every second when we do see accumulations greater than an inch.

Anyway, this morning I noticed my less than desirable cooktop cleaning job and set out to make it right. With paper towels and cleaner in hand I went about my work until… my hand slipped driving the top of my ring finger into the corner of the trim piece of the cooktop. I knew it broke the skin immediately and when I looked, the blood confirmed my thought. Since the paper towel I was using was the last one on the roll (go figure) I ran to the bathroom for a tissue and applied pressure to my finger.

As i waited for the blood to stop, i thought about how amazingly complex we all are. This tiny cut on the top of my finger produced a considerable amount of pain. As I looked at my finger my eyes wandered down to my wrist. With pain throbbing at the tip of my finger, I tried to but couldn’t even begin to imagine the pain Christ felt as the spikes were being driven through his wrists and then the tops of his feet.

What pain that must have been. But why would he endure all that pain? I was reminded of the answer when I looked at the blanket of white snow covering my front lawn just outside the bathroom window.

Christ died so he could cover our sin (all sin: past, present, and future) and make us white as snow when we stood in front of God. If we have asked Jesus to come into our hearts, we are washed clean by His blood and are seen just like blanket of snow…white.

This morning I woke up to the ground covered by the nights snowfall. After I accepted Christ as my Savior, I too am covered by His cleanings blood. Today, when my finger throbs or I see the blanket of snow outside, I will praise the Lord for the sacrifice made on Calvary to cover my sin.

Isaiah 1:18 (NIV)

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

God always provides a way out of the SIN trap

Proverbs 20:27 (NIV) “The Lord looks deep inside people and searches through their thoughts.”

In Proverbs 20, Solomon writes about the sin that can easily trip us up: drunkenness, laziness, dishonesty, gossip, and inappropriate anger. He also tells us that the Lord has given us ears to hear and eyes to see.

Our battle is not the sin itself. Sure, it is difficult to stop something once it becomes a habit. But the real battle is in our thoughts and the playing field there. If I don’t control my thoughts and make them obedient to Christ, I can easily get tripped up and do those things I know aren't pleasing to God.

This is where learning the word of God is so important. Once I know what pleases God through careful study of His word, I must strive to control my thoughts. Thoughts really do run our lives. This could lead to problems if my thoughts aren’t aligned with God’s word.

What about temptation? Have you ever found yourself saying “I easily fall into temptation” or “the temptation was just too much to handle.” Temptation itself is not a sin; giving in to temptation is. God always gives us a way out. His word promises that in 1 Corinthians 10:13. 

"No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it."  (MSG)

We were all born with a sin nature. When we rely on God and His mighty power to help us stand strong, we draw even closer to Christ and further away sin.

Related reading:

Ephesians 6:10 – 13; Hebrews 12:1; 2 Corinthians 12:9; James 1:12

Is sin holding you hostage?

Romans 6:20 – 23 (MSG) “As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.”

The sin in our life holds us hostage in a guilt and shame-filled prison cell. It (our sin) binds us to the wall of desolation where there is no hope and we are destined to die. But there is hope outside of those prison walls. His name is Jesus Christ. When we accept Him as our Lord and Savior, our old way of life is gone; it has been nailed to the very cross where Jesus paid our bail. Jesus served the time for our “crime”. No matter what we’ve done, we can be assured that our old life is gone and we’re set free from the bondage of sin’s grip (John 8:36). We are free to live an eternal life...God’s gift to us.

With this gift of eternal life, we can now begin to leave our old life behind and walk in the freedom of God’s grace. Jesus begins a new work in us. Does this mean we will never sin again? Don’t I wish! We were all born with a sin nature so it’s only natural to feel like sinning. As a Christian we must remember when we fall into sin we don’t have to go back to that guilt-filled prison cell because we've already been set free in Christ. We have a choice here...return to the prison cell and wallow in guilt and shame or realize the freedom we have in Christ and allow ourselves to be transformed by God’s grace. We have to learn how to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit living inside us...Jesus sent Him to us so we wouldn't be left alone (John 14:25 - 27).

I like to keep the picture of Peter walking on water in my mind. When Peter fixed his eyes on Jesus he could walk on water. It was only when he looked at the circumstances surrounding him that he was overcome and fell (Matthew 14:28 – 30). I encourage you today to keep your eyes on Jesus; don’t let the distractions of this world take your focus away from Him.

...and I like it like that!

Proverbs 8:13 “The reverent fear and worshipful awe of the Lord [includes] the hatred of evil; pride, arrogance, the evil way, and perverted and twisted speech I hate.”

I was raised in a Christian home and gave my life to Christ at the age of 11. By the time I was 16 the world enticed to me to follows its ways and I fell for it….all of it. I lived through my late teens, 20’s, and early 30’s reckless and with very little regard for God or his word. Even still, God never let me go. He had something much better than the life I was living in the world. I just had to realize the truth and turn away from it completely. The next time I bumped into Jesus, I was 33. I spent a VERY LONG time living in the world.

This time, my life would radically change in the way I talked, thought, and lived. This change, however, wouldn't happen overnight. When I said “YES” to Christ one Sunday morning in March of 2001, it was a half-hearted ‘yes’ at best. I wanted my life to change so badly but I wasn’t willing to “give up” my world to do it. I lived on the fence for about a year-and-a-half. During this time I’d go through the motions of church and my small group bible study, and still hung out with my “worldly friends.” I still talked, thought and lived my life as one reckless mess.

 

There I stood, at the crossroads of my life unwilling to make a move.

God changed all that one night when I had too much to drink and could barely stand. I had convinced myself and others I’d be fine to drive home so I got in my car and turned the key. As I did, something inside of me turned too. My eyes flooded with tears and moments later, sobs.

“Oh God, I am so sorry. What have I done? I am still making the same mess of my life. I want what you want for me but I can’t seem to get there. Help me Jesus! Save me from me.”

I grabbed my phone and began scrolling through my contacts list until I landed on the number of my small group leader. For the first time since I joined the group I admitted I was living a “double life”...living a lie. I had been wearing a mask the entire time. It was now time for me to get off the fence and really make a move forward onto God’s path. That night God’s grace poured over me like a soft cleansing rain and I felt his arms of love and not condemnation.

The next morning I received a call from one of the pastors at the church – again not condemning me for what I had done but encouraging me to begin the process of saying “NO” to the world and everything in it. I finally took that first step of commitment to following Jesus. I had to give up my worldly friends, for a while, until I could stand on my own and not fall to the temptations that had plagued my life for years.

Reading over Proverbs 8 this morning, my eyes landed on verse 13 and it brought my story to mind. This verse clearly says that love for God and love for sin cannot coexist. I saw that played out in my life. I couldn’t have my worldly friends, ways, and mind-set and commit wholeheartedly to Christ. So I chose the exciting journey of following Christ! I still talk to and see my old friends – I still love them. I don’t judge them for what they do or the way they live their life. I simply pray for them to come to the grace and knowledge that I found in Christ. But until they do…all I can do is be the woman God created me to be and I like it like that.