Posts Tagged: 1 John 1:9

“Hanging on to my Garbage”

On July 14, 2019 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

A friend of mine said at our 12-step meeting yesterday, “Sometimes, I hang on to my garbage . . .” [And then, he hesitated for a long while, looking as if he was trying to think of a good reason to hang on to his garbage.  Finally, he finished his comment] “. . . because I’m insane.”

Right!

Hanging on to garbage is always insane.  However, my garbage seems special somehow.  No, really it does!

So, I hang on to it.  Whether it was something done to me, or something I did, I hang on to it.  And, of course, it stinks worse every day I hang on to it.

Once, I was talking with a fellow who had just graduated from medical school.  I confessed to him that I liked him, but sometimes wasn’t too sure about doctors in general.  “I suppose I should be grateful to them for us living a lot longer these days,” I said.

His response surprised me.  “Well, you probably should be grateful to the garbage collectors,” he said.  “One of the main things that shortened the life span in the past was plagues that were largely caused by poor sanitation.  It is the garbage collectors that are the real heroes.”

Did you know that God is, among many other things, The Great Garbage Collector?  There are many verses in the Bible that speak of what God does with our garbage (a.k.a. “sins”).

“10  He does not deal with us according to our sins,

                        nor repay us according to our iniquities.

11         For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

                        so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

12         as far as the east is from the west,

                        so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:10-12, English Standard Version)

“I, I am he

who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,

            and I will not remember your sins.” (Isaiah 43:25, English Standard Version)

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9, my translation)

So, God apparently God collects all our sins, but he doesn’t collect them in order to add them to his collection.  He collects them from us to get rid of them.

Why then do we hang on to them?  There is no good reason, but there are probably lots of bad excuses.  Maybe we’re afraid that, if we let go of the bad things done to us, we are somehow letting the one who harmed us “off the hook.”  But if we realized how much damage the person who has hurt us have done to their own selves, perhaps we would give up this excuse.

And as for the harms we’ve done to ourselves and our other selves?  Why do we hang on to those?  Who knows?  Sometimes, I suspect that I have so identified my faults with my “real self” (whatever that might be) that I am afraid of giving up all my garbage.  If I set my garbage out at the curb, would there be anything left.

But no matter what excuses I come up with, or what reasons I try to concoct, the insanity of hanging on to my garbage still remains.  And the insanity will remain as long as the garbage remains.

Time to set the garbage out, and let God pick it up!  I think I hear the truck coming right now!  Got to go!

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“NO REPROACH FOR ANYTHING GOD HAS HEALED”

On July 6, 2017 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“God has no reproach for anything that He has healed.”  (http://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/thought-for-the-day, accessed 06-30-2017.  The quote is from the book Twenty-Four Hours a Day.)

“Some people think of scars as the sign of a wound.  I think of them as a sign of healing.”  (The source is unknown, though it may be my own.  More likely, I have reworded someone else’s thought a bit.)

I woke up this morning feeling pretty self-reproachful concerning my past.  Then, I turned to the Hazelden twelve-step reading quoted above.

It set me to thinking about various verses in the Bible that talk about what God can and does do with our sins.  Here are a few of those verses:

Psalm 103:12:  “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west” (New Living Translation).

1 John 1:9:  “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness” (New Living Translation).

But one of my favorite verses is:

Micah 7:19:  “Once again you will have compassion on us. You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean!” (New Living Translation).

Years ago, I hear David Seaman say in a sermon something to the effect that God throws our sins into the depths of the ocean, and then God puts a sign on the shore.  The sign says, NO FISHIN’ ALLOWED!

Whether your sins are ancient history or pretty much current news, the NO FISHIN’ sign still applies.  If Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, then our scars, even those from self-inflicted wounds, are signs of healing, rather than simply of the wounds.

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