Monday, June 4, 2018

Made...with Flaws


Monday, June 4, 2018
Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God?  Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?”  When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?  In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who are destined for destruction.  He does this to make the riches of his glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory.   Romans 9:20b-23(NLT)
To say that we are perfect (in the sense that when we are born there are no flaws), is to completely ignore the reality that we are born into (and of) a fallen human family; this is a sin-touched world.  To say the flaws are nothing more than parts of the sum of who God made me, and therefore perfectly alright, flies in the face of the necessity of the cross for salvation.  Literally, that kind of thinking says, I’m OK and you are also OK…we have nothing in our character or being for which we should be ashamed…or from which we need to be redeemed.  Scripture takes a 180o opposite take on that:
 For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.  Romans 6:23(NLT)
It’s true we are made with flaws.  God has allowed, in His patient love and because He gave us free will, this world’s flaws to exist in us; that is our right and it is what we all choose with that free will.  But that also presupposes that, even in the patience of God there is accountability and judgment for what we do with what we’ve been given.
I have written before about the “universalist” thinking (here) which claims the cross was God’s unilateral acceptance of all humans, regardless of their actions or beliefs.  I cannot think of anything that so blatantly denies Scripture and flaunts sin as this heresy. 
The LORD God, Jehovah of the Old Testament declares through the prophet Malachi (3:6) that He does not change, and He ends the New Testament with judgment for those who have not received His Son, Jesus, and a shopping list of sins those who live the lie of universalism.  If all are forgiven, why are there sheep and goats?  If all are forgiven, why is there Hell?  Why would Jesus teach about Dives, a wealthy man who winds up in Hell because he lived outside of God’s ways, treating a poor man as if he didn’t exist?  If all are forgiven, what would be the point of a Great White Throne Judgment? 
All these teachings and more, added to common sense, and an innate knowledge of eternity, evil, and accountability imprinted in our very being by God[2] make it abundantly clear that denying the coming judgment amounts to nothing more than ignorant whistling in the dark.  Living outside the express will of God, by purposefully rejecting what God has said, is the very definition of the flaw of sin.  We are born with it, but Christ has made the way possible to have our flaws addressed.
But it isn’t all passive (as universalism suggests) – salvation is received when sins are forgiven.  There is not a sin too big to be forgiven.  There is never a sin too small to be confessed.  And therein lays the trap; we humans think we get to judge what is a small sin.  The truth is, even the smallest, hairline crack in your car’s windshield will eventually make the thing come apart.  It isn’t IF a crack will bring ruin – it’s WHEN; it’s always just a matter of time!
It also isn’t a matter for we humans to judge what sin is…it is not for the jar to tell the potter how to define a crack in its’ being.  In the same way, humans must acknowledge sin for what God has declared in His Word.  If you look at the condition of our world today, sin is rampant, and that means we are ripe for judgment; Greed…Lust…Fornication…Homosexuality…Infidelity…Anger…the list is massive!
Only the cross of Jesus has healing for our sin…and that only when we repent of our sins and trust in His grace.  Blaming God for our flaws, saying this is the way He created me, makes Him an implicit co-conspirator in our evil.  We are Adam all over again, offering our excuse, instead of our confession, blaming the Creator instead of admitting to having chosen evil over righteousness.
For You Today
Arguing with God over sin didn’t work for Adam and Eve; does it work for anyone?
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com
[2] Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart.  Ecclesiastes 3:11(NLT)

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