When sin makes you weep

In this quiet room this morning I am weeping for the families who are burying their precious children in Connecticut.  I close my eyes and think of those children who were with their families, like my children are with me.  And then I think of the horrific evil that changed everything in a moment.  It is so painfully ugly.  I can barely stand to think of it.  And I wonder at God's ability to endure sin for a single moment.  In it's ugliest, most detestable forms it shakes us and pierces our hearts.  Yet, we have to remember that even the things that we take lightly in our own lives are ugly and vile to Him.

To think that choosing to disobey God in the garden would lead to all of this!  And we wish that our all-powerful God would just put a stop to sin, don't we?  Our heart may cry out "Why didn't you stop this from happening God?"  We wonder how he could let it go on.  But it is then that we have to consider what we let go on...in our own hearts.  Sin is not just in the world, it is in our hearts.  We should weep over our own sin.  The problem is that we have some sin that we don't consider ugly.  We don't see how horrific it is.  We don't see it's effects.  We don't see how it grieves God.  It doesn't matter how good we look on the outside, God knows the inside and he knows when we are like "whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness." (Matt. 23:27)

Do we expect that God should powerfully subdue us every time we are about to sin with our mind, our mouth, our eyes, our hands?  We would be unable to live a single day.  And this terrible thing called sin, we desperately want to be rid of it.  We see its effects, we see its consequences.  We grieve at what we know that we are all capable of.  It frightens us...at least...it should.  In his mercy, he calls us.  Through long suffering he waits...

And what is left to do, but to turn to him?  This Holy One.  The One "who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see..." (1Timothy 6:16)  The One who loves with an everlasting love that is so deep we cannot even comprehend it.  The One who calls us to turn from our wicked ways and turn to Him and find rest for our souls.  Our souls will not reside in these sinful bodies forever if we turn our hearts to him and receive the only One who has the remedy for our illness.  The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ has power to save!  And those that have trusted in his sacrifice know that they will be with him forever and one day sin will be no more.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20b)