Playing around again this a.m. with the edits of my blog. My review of earlier writings still challenges my current walk with Christ. Maybe there is something here?
2008:
“I have been preoccupied with this phrase for several days now, ‘Sin Lies at the Door.’ Sin is anything that separates one from God. It can be a thought or an action, both may bear confession. This writing may be just that?
This blog site has become a place for me to bare my soul, that I might bear my life. To those reading, concern may have just arisen? Not sure where I am in life right now, and then again, I suspect I know exactly where I am, the valley of decision. I have too many years with the Lord, too much time to reflect back upon, to now pretend. I am at a point of deciding just how I go forward with life itself.
John the Baptist had such a moment and he went forward; he would not recant, though it cost him his head. If I go forward, it may cost me the joy of leadership that I find so open at this time; even among my dearest friends, and the fellowship that I find among the brethren within the church, though that too is growing thin.
Making a decision is not the difficult part, I understand the process. Wondering if I am right has me fraught with possible error. Am I on the brink of heresy? What a dreaded word, for I know myself; I know my species, and we are prone to wander.
Do I struggle with the church, absolutely for I see the huge resource base consumed daily, and like our Federal deficit, it does not seem to slow. Those, whom I trust, even speak against the institution, and yet continue in their “prosperous” ways. In their denial, they seem themselves as radically different! Have we become like the alcoholic who with alcohol on his breath denies the problem, or the harlot who moves home to her mother’s, only to come in a little later each evening until she is back in full business!
We all heard recent campaign rhetoric, Drill Baby Drill. Well, in the church it’s Grow Baby Grow, Plant Baby Plant. Restrained somewhat by this economy, but unchanged nevertheless. There is far too little said about Serve Baby Serve, that is outside our campuses, though almost everyone knows that are cities are in big trouble. As well, the nation we have served is so deep in debt she can hardly find her way, and the globe that has so often looked to America for guidance, struggles even more.
Things are becoming clearer as I write, I thought they might.
“Then the Lord said to Cain, “ ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But is you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.’ ” Gen 4:6-7
Sin has crouched at my door since early youth, or I would have protected my calling and perhaps been at a different place in my life. I have never mastered sin and it has never left my door. Am I different than most men, I think not. Shall I surrender to sin, of course not…I will reconcile myself to be dead to sin through Christ Jesus; yet not so gullible as to fail to respect the power of sin, for it is ever at the door. But wait, Christ is The Door; so if I am feeling sin, I must be near the door?
Can sin keep me from the door? “Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man will open the door….” Here, I think of the artist rendering of the door, with “The Door” outside knocking! I am there in my life, so desiring to allow The Door to enter my door. Vexed like Lot by what I see around me, what I allow in me (even what I set before my eye gate). I’m not talking about pornography, but the subtle nuances of sin that are so every day apart of the media. Must I become a recluse…and if so, is that not isolating myself even more?
I must lose myself in service, not the doing of church, but the being of Christ to my community. I will trust Him, for that is faith and faith is the door to ‘The Door’.”