Naked

Sin is alive and well, and before I begin I am not one of these guys that is all about sin and salvation for just a future place in Heaven, as if I have purchaced, (through Christ) my ticket to Heaven and now I am just waiting around to get the "prize". I believe that we are to some extent able to experience a little taste of heaven right now, as we grow in our sanctification as we struggle and wrestle with this relationship. I do however, think we are not takinig sin seriously enough in our christian culture today. It is almost as if we have begun on this new post modern quest for an old school "works based salvation", I mean it is like we are trying to pull Justification out of the Gospel. It is like we have forgotten why we primarily need Jesus. Why do we primarily need a savior? Well our culture would tell us that we need "Jesus" so we can be more like Him, or so we can learn to love like Him, Or be like Him, I mean what would Jesus do right? Or we need him to show us that we need to be taking care of the world. Now do not get me wrong, All those things are good but let me ask you, when can we really experience those things? Well in our present state, at least according to the Bible, we cannot do anything like Jesus due to a little thing we posess that separates us from God the Father, this is called SIN. This sin saparates us from a realtionship with God, in fact the Bible is pretty clear that we are not doing ok in our present state, but are in fact dead in our sin. Not flopping around reaching out for good, Not doing ok, and needing Jesus to make us better, but rather dead, (ROmans), SO how can we think that we primarily need Jesus to begin to do things that can only take place after we have been made right, How can we love like Jesus when we are dead, how can we learn to love like him when we are dead. How can we begin to be like Him when we are at war with His Father? This new thinking is becomoing very popular but if you look at the heart of it, this thinking is nothing more than a new and improved works based way to "find favor" with God. Our works are superseding our need for our relationship to be made right with God. Our works dictate our "primary " standing with God. I am all for learing to love more like Jesus, but lets face it, we are not Jesus, and any possible way that we are capable of being like Jesus is through His spirit, not our works, but his fruit. And that can only come after we have been made right by having Christ's work ont the cross claimed in our lives as being a sinner. Recognizing our need for a savior is crucial to the difference between Justification by grace through faith ALONE, or Sanctification by works, without Justification.

We are becoming experts at moving out from under the work of the cross ad resurrection, as soon as we stop living out from under the cross and ressurection, something will take its place, that something is us, our works our love, our wells dug in africa, our words, etc. These things in context of the process of sanctification are fine, but they are dirty rags in and of themselves.

What is our primary need for Jesus? Do not be so quickly fooled into thinking it is other things. There are many secondary reasons for Jesus, do not get me wrong, but if we get Justification wrong we are nothing more than a religion- Religion- What I do for God......


Adam was afraid because he was naked...... Stripped of His self worth because he had fallen short of the glory of God, separated from God due to his sin, not because he did not love like Jesus or God, not naked because he was not loving others the right way, but because of his sin, his choice to try to go up on God's level and be fulfilled with himself rather than God. The created trying to be fulfilled by the created, not the creator...

God must have taken sin seriously enough, if it was just a matter of learning to love better or be a better person, he would have told Adam to do just that, but He does not, he takes it so seriously, He promises to fix what we cannot fix, to give His son to fix our mess, He holds back man's rightfull curse and gives it to His son, (Gal. 3). If God takes sin seriously we need to get back to that. Deal with our sin and move on but don't right it off... Don't make light of it. We need Jesus desparately to forgive us of our sin, so we can move on and love like Him, learn about Him, love others, etc...