Friday, June 1, 2012

To be more like Jesus

I too sometimes catch myself condemning sinners with the words of my lips, or with the words I have written (which are, of course, much harder to take back). It usually happens, though, when my soul is mobilized by something outside me, like thinking about people who are being oppressed, or whatever.

When I stop and just get quiet, with the Lord being right there with me as He always is, it doesn't even enter my mind to judge or criticise even someone who has purposely wronged me. That's why I always retreat to that private chamber as often as possible, certainly every day, usually several times a day.

The world has a way of soiling our feet as we go about in it. Only Jesus can wash those feet clean again. And He is so faithful to forgive us and turn the other cheek to our sin.

It is so obvious to me after living a very tempestuous life, that the function of the Law is, as holy apostle Paul says, to simply tell us what is wrong. It's the prognosis, but not the cure. Only the living One, the only Lover of mankind, the only Physician, Jesus, can cure, but the medicine He applies is Death. For many Christians that is too severe a treatment, so they prefer to hobble along with the burden of their unforgiven sin weighing them down. In that condition, being too sick to live but afraid of Death, they yield to the kind of grouchiness that exhibits itself as judgmentalism.

Who has been forgiven much, loves much.

How sick our world is! How deceived we all are! Only by turning to Jesus, who is always near, can we be delivered ‘from this body of death,’ by conquering death by death, as He did, and finally be freed from bondage so that we, like Him, can bring life to those in the tombs…

Lord Jesus! I wish You would let me wash Your feet, for it was by walking about in me that You soiled them!

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