Why do we hate the ‘S’ word?

I’ve been married twice. My first husband had a couple of addictions and I was too selfish to help him, so that marriage did not last. Soon after, Jesus came into my life, but I was still living by my ‘I wants’ without knowing much about obedience. My second husband was not a Christian when I married him and for several years I resisted both him and God, wanting to be the boss in my own life. Eventually, my husband was saved, but I was still trying to run things, and blamed our problems of marriage on everything else but my desire to control everything.

I understand why women, even Christian women, hate the ‘S’ word. The following verse produces frustration, anger, excuses, and other negatives. It did for me too, until someone explained God’s definition that word . . . 

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.” (Ephesians 5:22–23)

Submission to God is being set free from the tyranny of sin, and sin is simply always wanting my own way. Submission to my husband is the same thing. God wants to set me free from the tyranny of always insisting on my own way. For a spoiled brat like me, that was not good news — until I began to realize how having my own way is not only sinful and selfish, but a terrible oppression.

That realization didn’t make it any easier to do what the Bible says. Most people, even Christians, do not realize the power of sin or how deep-seated it is within our hearts and minds. It is like having a cancer that will not go away. Just when it is conquered in one place, it pops up in another. However, knowing I battled sin and not my husband certainly put me onto something. I could taste freedom, just a little.

Then the Lord showed me that marriage is a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church, a far bigger thing than just the relationship between a man and a woman. God created it to be a demonstration, a model. For me, the Christ and church relationship is easier to understand. It makes sense that He is the head of the church. It makes sense that the church organizes its life around Him. Not that it happens perfectly. Church members can slip out of the will of God without realizing they have slipped, yet none of us think that the church should ignore God’s commands.

Yet we resist this one. A neighbor said, “When my husband starts acting like Christ, then I will submit to him.” What she meant is what many women struggle with: marriage where their spouse fails to do their part in this model of Christ and the church:

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Ephesians 5:25–28)

As today’s devotional says, it is easy for a woman to reverence a man who loves her and it is easy for a man to love a woman who reverences him. All of us desire to live in a perfect world!

I must be honest. It would be easier to be a submissive wife if hubby did everything God wants, but as I read the Bible and as I better understand myself and my own sin, I realize that perfection in this world is not going to happen; it is reserved for heaven. The best I can do is not insist everyone else or everything in my life is the way I want it. That is childish and selfish. Instead, I’m accountable to do my part.

How many commands in the Bible ask for attitudes and actions that require faith? How much of what God wants is not about circumstances being lined up to suit me, but about trusting Him? Is it 50% or closer to 100%?

A life of faith is 100%. I cannot say I trust God and then add, “except for. . .” Even though I’ve said that, it is ridiculous. If I can trust God to raise me from my coffin and take me to heaven, can’t I trust Him for everything else? My only rationale is that I want my own way, that I trust me more than God. What nonsense!

This is the tyranny of sin. In wanting my own way, I miss out on the incredible wisdom of God. I cannot see His promises fulfilled. Faith means nothing unless I can let go of my reasoning, my selfish desires, my desires to be in control. Faith means nothing if ‘I know better than God’ and make up a million excuses why I don’t need to submit to my husband, or to anyone else, and become blind to the reality that I am not submitting to Almighty God either.

^^^^^^^^

Jesus, of all the truths You have taught me, this is perhaps the most precious and the most practical. When I am in Your will, my home and marriage is likely the closest thing to heaven on earth. Every time I choose otherwise and the tyranny of sin raises its ugly head, that bliss is ruined and I need to run back to You in humility and repentance. Thank God You still welcome me and continue to teach me how Your grace sets me free.

Sin >>> Death?

Leviticus 20:1–22:33

John 9:35–41

Song of Solomon 8:1–5

In a world where sin is so rampant and largely goes unpunished, the Bible verses that claim those who sin must die seem to be hollow words. Here are some of them . . .

“If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people. Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you. For anyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon him. If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:6–10)

“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you. If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” (Leviticus 20:13–16)

“You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them.” (Leviticus 20:26-27)

God gave these and many other commands to His people saying, “So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the Lord. And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 22:31–33)

The Bible says that the soul that sins shall die. This is literal and very serious. So why do we not stone to death those who break these commands? First of all, they were given to God’s people in those early days in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt. Second, and gloriously so, God’s people are now no longer under the law of sin and death, but under grace. This means that Jesus came to fulfill the demands of the Law. He did not sin. Instead, He reversed that curse and set His people free from the wages of sin.

Nonetheless, sin is a serious matter. That freedom and grace is only for those who give their lives to Jesus. But even under grace, Christians still sin and this seriously affects our lives. When I am filled with my I-wants, I cannot hear or answer the call of God to obedience. I lose the joy of seeing Him, walking with Him, knowing Him as my friend, my lover, my brother. All of the wonders of these relationships and more are lost when sin comes between Him and me.

As for death, the Bible says that I died with Christ, so sin did slay me. At first, sin created a spiritual separation from God so I was dead in my sin. Then, because of Christ, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

When that happened, it was as if I had been blind all my life, blind to spiritual realities. Then, because of Jesus, I was given sight. The next reading from John continues the story of the man born blind (just like I was born a sinful person). Jesus healed this man, but the religious people were enraged and tossed the man out of their place of worship.

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him. Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains. (John 9:35–41)

Jesus condemns those who think they know and understand the things of God, and gives sight to those who are blinded by sin, in this man’s case literally, in my case spiritually. Once He opened my eyes and my heart, everything changed. I have new eyes and new life, eternal life.

I just smile at the metaphors in the last reading, thinking of Jesus and the intimacy of these words: “Oh that you were like a brother to me who nursed at my mother’s breasts! If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and none would despise me.” (Song of Solomon 8:1)

Those who despise Christians give me no fear. No matter what threats they make or the lies they tell, I am my beloveds and He is mine. He gave me sight and nothing can change that. He also took me to the cross where I died and where He gave me new life, and nothing can change that either!

The worst bad hair day . . .

The Bible says God knows the number of hairs on my head. That may be incredible, but He also knows each time I sin, even when I and those around me are oblivious to sinful nature of my actions and motivations.

When a new Christian, a dear mentor had me look up every verse in the Bible that defined sin. It was devastating but an important exercise for me. I remember two verses that really got to the heart of things, and to my heart also. The first one came from Isaiah . . .

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

Sin isn’t necessarily doing that which is overtly evil, like murder or stealing, nor is it just cursing or making idols. While those things make a huge mess, sin is also simply going my own way, doing my own thing, not heeding God in the slightest. God created me to mirror His image, meaning I am nothing and can do nothing apart from the One whom I am to reflect. Sin ignores that and the reflection does its own thing.

Imagine looking in a mirror and the image is not looking back at you, but doing something else, even something you have no intention of doing. This is a depiction of sin. God’s image, which is what I am, decides to be something else. It may not be overtly bad, but nevertheless has gone its own way.

Another verse deeply convicts me too. It is defines the motivation for going my own way . . .

But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. (Romans 14:23)

Biblical faith means that I believe in whatever God says and because I truly believe Him, I trust His Word as the guide for my life. That is, God says I should forgive those who sin against me. Because I believe Him, I will do that, not because it makes sense to me, or because it is easy (for it is not), but because God is right and true, and going my own way demonstrates lack of faith, and is sinful.

The logic of living by faith is easy to write on paper or post on a blog. Doing it is another thing, as anyone who takes sin seriously will discover. Besides all the challenges of trying to live by faith today, there are a pile of sins from the past that are countless, far more than the hairs on my head and far more difficult to deal with than a bad hair day. Sin messes up my life and the lives of those around me. It is a tangle that cannot be untangled, like hair matted around bubble gum, or to use another image, like feathers thrown into the wind. Yet God, who loves us with an everlasting love, provided the solution for the miserable past, and the helpless present. He sent His Son to rescue us . . .

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17)

Salvation through faith in Christ means many things. It means the forgiveness of past sin, the cleansing of old motivations, a change of heart and life that gives new reasons for action, and it means having that ability to believe God that was not there before. Faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). It is having blind eyes opened to the truth of sin, the reality of my need, and the genuine power of the Savior.

When I first saw Him as He is, my response was much like that of John the Baptist . . .  

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! (John 1:29)

Notice that he says Jesus takes away “the sin of the world.” Not “sins,” but “sin” and not my sin, but all sin. Only God can see that deep into the darkness of the human soul, only God can count that high, and only God the Son, Jesus Christ can remove sin.

“Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). The law of God may have multitudes of commandments, but there is only one principle, love Him as He created us in His image to do, realizing that this image can be restored and like the Creator only through a saving faith relationship with the One He sent to take away our sin. 

 (art clip credit)