Friday, August 13, 2021

Worthy

 I’ve been going through some faith changes of late. Perhaps some people will be disheartened about them and worry about the path I’m on but for me I’ve never been so sure of the Love of God. I’m letting go of some things I’ve been taught because I don’t see them in the life of Jesus. I’m not going to dive deep into the changes I’ve had but in this blog post I’ll share a few. In Christianity it’s taught how we are wretched sinners. Depending on what flavour of Christianity one subscribes to this can be subtle or bashed over your head repeatedly. But subtle or not this is a prominent teaching. Brad Jersak (I think it was him), refers to this as piece of shit theology. Jesus summed up the commandments in Matthew 22:37-39: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 

How can we effectively love our neighbour as ourselves if we are told again and again that at the core of our being we are worthless? Can we really love ourselves well if this is what we are taught again and again?  It’s questions like these that I’ve had that have made me rethink these things. And yet upon completing His creation He looked on all He had made and called it good. Is sin more powerful than that original declaration? I don’t see it. We are made in the very image of God. He breathed life into us. Here is a collage I made about our worth and a song that I find very fitting. The song is called Tension and Thrill by Sleeping at Last. My song links aren’t showing up on all devices. 



I also can’t believe this notion that God can’t be in the presence of sin anymore. After Adam and Eve sinned they saw their nakedness. They tried to cover themselves up and they tried to hide. Yet God came LOOKING for them. He didn’t turn His face from their presence. The verse to uphold this teaching of God not being able to look on sin is found in Habakkuk 1:13 and for some reason is usually only shared partly. The full verse reads: Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil and You cannot tolerate wrongdoing.

So why do You tolerate the faithless? Also Jesus is God in the flesh. And who did he hang out with? The tax collectors. The drunkards. The prostitutes. The marginalized. This notion of God not being able to be in the presence of sin I can no longer believe that. So from all this one might ask well why did He die then if not to pay for our sins. I have many thoughts on that but I’ll save it for another time. In brief I believe His death on the cross wasn’t to appease God’s wrath but rather to reveal His love and forgiveness. ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do’ Luke 23:34. I’ve got two songs to share, both go with this collage I made. I titled it Timshel, which essentially means the ability to rule over sin, Genesis 4:7.


Listen to Timshel here:



 I also find this lyric from the song titled 'Bad Blood'  by Sleeping at Last very relevant to my collage and what I've shared in this post:

We study our story arcs, inherently good, or were we broken right from the start. My answer: Inherently good. You may have a different answer and that's ok. We are all on this journey called life and I'm ok with not arriving at the same conclusions as everyone else. I just hope I can also have the same grace extended to me. Let's hold space for one another and love one another. 

* I've been having some issues with the songs I share not showing up when using mobile. If this happens and you are inclined to listen (please do!) they can all be found on youtube, or most streaming services, they are as follows: Tension and Thrill, by Sleeping at Last. This goes along with the first collage I shared. Then for the last collage: Timshel, by Mumford and Sons and Bad Blood by Sleeping at Last. 




 






2 comments:

  1. Unfortunately you have gone from one misconception to the next. Hopefully you quit following the misconceived and start following Jesus Christ in the word of God, who actually says "be holy for I am holy". and also "unless you take up your cross daily and follow after Me you are not worthy of being my disciple". I hope you can reconcile yourself to these words of Jesus. Jesus says if you LOVE me, you would obey me.

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