Wednesday, 07 November 2007

• After a long hiatus...

  So here I am, officially November seventh. I'm more than halfway through my first semester at college. It's one thirty in the morning, and I'm writing. What else is new. Right now I'm chilling with some smooth jazz and wishing I had a cup of hot chocolate. This is really coffee type music, but I'm not really the coffee kind of guy. Come to think of it, I'm not really a smooth jazz type of guy either, but I think I could get to be. This stuff is really relaxing and catchy. Makes me miss my drum set.
  
      I should really be asleep right now, but I'm not. I've been wanting to write for a couple of days now, but haven't actually been in the mood or mindset to do so. I've been super stressed lately, which isn't like me. Most of the time people complain to me that I don't worry enough about my schoolwork. They tell me that my nonchalance is going to catch up with me and one day I'll realize I'm not putting much thought into it. Au contraire, mon freire- I put quite a lot of thought into my work. The problem I've been suffering from lately is TOO MUCH thought. I was starting to hurt, lose my appetite, and be tired all the time. With a bunch of folks on campus and in the band running around with Mono, a weak immune system is the last thing I need right now.
  
      Speaking of things making their way through the line, I'm not sure this is so prevalent and pressing, but I want to talk about it for a little bit anyway. It actually came up at BCM tonight (actually it was last night according to the clock now, but oh well) too, so it's fairly heavy on my mind. It's the whole idea of passing judgement on another person. It's not cool. The first thought that Christ basically implanted in my head when I got to college was: "Josh, nobody here can make you do anything, but at the same time, you can't make them NOT do anything."
  
      I say he implanted it there because I think it really hit my mind in a supernatural way. Normally, since I'm stubborn and spiritually deaf in one ear, God has to teach me things through repeated trials and troubles. You'd think I'd catch on after a while, but no. In this case, the realization just kind of hit me. It was a good thing too. College is a weird place. It's quite the departure from the way things were in high school. In high school, the concept of peer pressure exists where people give you crap if you don't go along with them. College...well, college is about as close to the polar opposite of that as you can get. If you drink, nobody cares. If you don't drink, nobody cares. If you go to church, nobody cares. If you lie to your parents back home and tell them that you're in church every Sunday, nobody cares; in fact, they may find it funny. I'm thankful that one of my parents is constantly with me. Dad never leaves me hanging and is always there, even when I'm stubborn and do something stupid because I think I know what's best, He's always there to pick me up, dust me off, occasionally give me a whuppin' for disobeying, and then tell me to get out there and get going again.
  
      After that super long tangent, back to what I was saying about judgment. Here's what I have to say about it, or rather what Jesus had to say about it:
  
  "But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Now early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, 'Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?' This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, 'Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She said, 'No one, Lord.' And Jesus said to her, 'Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.' Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, 'I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.'"
  
  John 8:1-12
  
  I don't see any reason to over-complicate this. First let's look at the situation that the woman is in. She's brought up on charges- valid charges, mind you- of adultery, accused by the Pharisees. She was caught in the very act, and according to the law deserves to die. Admittedly, the law was supreme. She did actually deserve to die by Mosaic law. That's not hard to understand. Jesus, a man who claimed to fulfill the law in Matthew 5, says basically, "If you've never sinned, go ahead and stone her to death." If Jesus came to fulfill the law, why did He not exercise judgment right there? Because the lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. His sacrifice is eternal- not immortal mind you, with a beginning but no end. It is eternal; before time began and after time ends, his sacrifice will still stand. Jesus, basing His forgiveness of the woman on his own eternal sacrifice, says "go and sin no more."
  
      Now, how do we apply this? Well, first we should take into account that we don't have the right to pass judgment anyway; that much is clear. Only when we're sinless do we have the right to throw stones, and I'm willing to bet that none of us are sinless. At the same time, Jesus never denied that what the woman did was sinful. If what she did wasn't sin, there'd be no need for Him to forgive her. There's a fine line between accepting sin and forgiving sin. We cannot accept sin as Christians. It is against our new nature to accept sin. We are required to forgive others for their shortcomings though, because we've been forgiven of our own.
  
      It's easy to get into sketchy territory here, mainly when it comes to accountability. For non-Christians, accountability is a non-issue. I mean really, if they don't believe in Christ yet, what reason is there for them not to do what they want? Romans 8. It's against their nature to want to please God. That doesn't mean that we should condemn them; that means exactly the opposite. That means we should love them profusely. God looks down on a nonbeliever and sees a creation of His, dirtied and soiled as it is in sin, and loves it anyway. That's what we're supposed to see. We didn't earn the gift of grace that we have by works; how can we judge others by their works? The beauty of Christianity is God's abounding, free, amazing gift of grace. If we don't show grace and mercy as God's children and forgive the sins in others that WE OURSELVES ARE GUILTY OF, why would anybody want to believe in our Father? So that's a brief outline of accountability/non-Christian relations in my mind. Comment me if I've misspoken something or I need to be called on something. It is, after all, really late and my mind may be skipping important details.
  
      But Christians discussing accountability with other Christians can be a mess too. You'd think that we would have this worked out, but we are human too, after all. We'll never get it perfect until Christ Himself perfects us on the last day. Until then though, we have to find a way to cope. Basically, every Christian has his/her sins that they battle with. We cannot as believers just assume that because we're forgiven, sin is ok. Paul actually addresses that in Romans 6. We have to fight that sin nature in us through the power of Christ.
  A great tool we have to fight these sins is accountability with other Christians. I know living with the roommate that I do is a great help to me. I know that he's not going to be shacked up with somebody when I get back to the room and he knows that I won't be drunk/high when he comes back. We also know that if either of those situations happened, we'd call the other person on it. At the same time we should be accountable though, we have to speak the truth in love. We're called to speak words that strengthen and edify. We can't condemn, because in Christ, there is no condemnation. We have to be careful that in keeping our accountability, we don't levy condemnation on our brothers and sisters, because one Christian is just as guilty of breaking God's law as the next, and we all have the same forgiveness. And that forgiveness is not through our works, so we can't judge others by their works. That's just not our job.
  
  I really wish I could write more, because as this semester goes on, this topic is getting nearer and dearer to my heart. Maybe I will turn on my smooth jazz tomorrow (or today) and write some more.
  
  

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