The Messy Life

Life is messy. We want to try and make it nice and clean. We want to give short and clean principals and then we will have our guide to have life be neat and clean and smooth and everything will be nice. And as Christians... oh, if we just would obey God more and not do pet issue X (you know, the thing that you do that really annoys me), then everything in life would be wonderful. If we just follow the will of God, things will be better.

Um... not quite.

Seriously, not quite. We don't follow the Will of God in order to make things nice. You want evidence of that... um, how nice and clean was the life of Christ. Obeying the Father's will led to Him being crucified.

We don't follow God's will to make the world a better place... this world isn't a "better place" -- its full of sin and vice and horror. We strive to follow God's Will because we desire to do what is right.

And even this is messy. You know why? Because you are a sinner in a sinful world. Everything you do is tinged with sin and ulterior motives. Everything that the people you interact with do is sinful as well.

Seriously. Everything. Even your striving to do right... how much of that is self-righteousness, how much of that is contempt for those rotten people who just don't strive as hard as you do to follow God's will?

Do you want to know what God's will is? Do you want to know how to live according to God's law. Show love. Period. Simply as that - love God, love your neighbor. Every act, every thought must be for the good of your neighbor. Not with disdain towards them, not with condescension, not with superiority, but with love.

And you know what... you've never, ever had a thought like that. Not one that is completely pure. And neither have I.

This life is messy. It is a life full of death... and all the plans and simple checklists and protestations of what you can't do won't change that.

"Well, does this mean we just don't even try then?" Try for what? Try to perfect our neighbor, perfect ourselves? That's folly. No, we are to strive to love, to care, to point to Christ and beat down the passions of the flesh that get in the way... even those passions we want to think are okay because they fit in with the checklist I made.

All you do is sin, for you are a sinful being. Repent of it, repent of all your works, cast them down for the filthy rags that they are. And delight in Christ Jesus, for He has died for you.