5 years ago today. Remember.
It is entirely too late but my mind is racing and I can't fall asleep. Maybe a xanga entry will help clear some of my thoughts. I apologize if any of this sounds like I am talking to myself. Well, I guess I am talking to myself in a way. Here goes... I have just begun my 5th year here at UT, and as I look back over the past 4 years, I see that I have nothing to be proud of. Well scratch that, I shouldn't be the one with the right to take pride in myself, I shouldn't even use the word pride. What a disgusting word. Looking back over the past 4 years, I have not accomplished so much as a scratch for the Kingdom of my so-called "Lord Jesus." I heard once that in college, you either draw very near to the Lord or you learn to put him in your back pocket when you need a hankie to wipe that tear off your face or that snot running from your nose when something goes wrong. In other words, we still go to church every Sunday, but that's pretty much the gamut of our relationship with Jesus. I believe in you Jesus, but I don't want to follow you. Jesus, you can save me, but please don't do more than that for me. I've got so much else to do in this world, I don't have time for you to change my life. I dare say that many of my fellow Christians may have experienced or are in danger of experiencing this close-to-hell spritual drama-rama. I say "close-to-hell" for a reason. I have asked myself so many times why this has happened. Do I just need a spiritual catharsis and be "filled" with the Holy Spirit and start speaking on tongues? Do I blame my church community for not giving me the spiritual feeding that I need? Have other Christians caused me to stumble? Was I just plain disobedient to God like Adam & Eve were? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Yes. Since the only answer I know for sure is to the last question, that is the only issue I want to address. My disobedience to God. My sin. My sinnnnnnnn. OOooOOOoooo. Haven't heard that word in awhile huh. It's so p. in c. So unpopular nowadays in churches. It's just not post-modern Christian-style! Don't mention that word lest we lose a few members. It's like mentioning the words "President Bush" in the middle east or the rest of the world for that matter. Okay I am exaggerating a bit. But honestly, in my experience I have not heard that word spoken in awhile nor thought about it. These past years I had slowly learned to erase my awareness of my sin (and its consequences). I saw the same thing happen to many in my community too. Freedom in Christ! we exclaimed. We became protected by the shield of liberalism in Christianity that those who speak out against sin are "legalistic" and "judgmental." When I thought more about this pervasive avoidance of the idea of sin in my life—although sin itself was still very present—I became very worried. Why worry so much Sarah? God is love. Don’t talk about sin, talk about love. He is indeed love, amen. But why this love? Why this saving grace? Why did God have to send Jesus to die for us as in John 3:16? Was it not to cleanse us of our sins that had caused us to fall short of the glory of God? Was it not to reunite us to the Father who in his holiness and righteousness could not, by his very nature, be with us in our sinful state? Repentance from sin is one of the cornerstones of our salvation is it not? If all we want from Jesus is for him to be our superhero savior dude, then fine, we can continue to ignore sin. Those of us who take Jesus for what he’s worth would do well to listen to his own warnings of sin. Matthew 5:30
And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Matthew 18:8
If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. Mark 9:43
If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. I want to give credit to the book the Smell of Sin for explaining to me what Jesus was trying to say with these verses. No, he wasn’t telling us to literally cut off our hands and feet. He used such a violent and gruesome illustration to show us how seriously he takes sin and how seriously we should deal with it. We should deal with sin in our lives with a violent determination. It should not be tolerated. It must be cut off from our lives. This is one of Jesus’ commandments and we MUST obey it. 1 John 2:3-6
We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. We have fallen in love with the world. Does it really matter that when we go out to 6th Street on the weekend, no one can tell that we are Christ-followers? How does one exactly show that they are a Christ-follower while out at 2 AM on 6th street? Is there really eternal significance in the fact that I am shakin’ my barely clothed booty half-drunk in the middle of a sexually intensified club to “I’m into havin’ sex I ain’t into makin’ love so come give me a hug”?? Sometimes I honestly don’t know if God really cares if I say the F word or sleep over at my boyfriend’s apartment or listen to booty-call music. I mean c’mon, it’s just a great beat. Doesn’t the fact that I care for the homeless make up for it? That I ask for forgiveness every Sunday? Can’t I just hold hands with my neighbor and sing Kumbaya my Lord? I know God cares if I am prideful, if I don’t forgive, if I ignore the helpless. But what about these other things? Do they really matter? The Bible doesn’t clearly state “do not shake yo booty at a club” like he states how we must forgive others. I’m not 100% sure, but I feel a slight conviction. Oh gosh, what about the complete trash we watch on TV or the movies! I mean, I admit, I LOVE movies. But after awhile, “learn to discern” gets just a tad bit hard when I’m constantly seeing sex on the big/little screen. Does anyone remember that presentation by Gene McConnell, a recovering sex-addict, a few years ago called “The Power of Porn”? He talked about how everything we consume, movies, music, T.V., fashion magazines, advertisements, etc. affect our minds in some way. I think we are naïve if we claim to be completely immune to the world’s messages that bombard us everyday. 1 John 2:15-17
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. And if we are not free from this sin, how can we expect to serve our righteous Master in a way that is pleasing to him? Well Sarah, you don't have to be perfect to serve God. Duh, no one is perfect on this earth, but if we are still so obviously mired and imprisoned by sin without a desire or earnestness to break free from it, is God really going to do much with us? I don’t really know. I have fallen dangerously close to forgetting what my salvation is really all about. All I know is that I have to rely on the convictions the Holy Spirit puts in my heart once I start talking to him again. | 
