Depravity

The first point – total depravity.  Now, Calvinist or not, an understanding of the human condition as completely and utterly withoutany righteousness in it becomes clear the moment you sit in an audience at a movie theatre and realize what people find funny.  I saw a preview for the new Sacha Baron Cohen film…I paid so little attention to it that I’ve forgotten the title already…just the other night.  there’s nothing like looking at the state of comedy to make you realize that people find morally reprehensible characters among the most amusing of all.  Perhaps it’s the innate human sense of pride – I am better than this – that causes us to laugh at those things which, as Christians, we understand are damning.  But then, we oh so conveniently forget things like Isaiah 58:1-2, which declares unequivocally “Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgement of their God”.  And lest I get prideful myself, claiming to take the moral high ground above others, I have the reminders in Romans 3: 10-12, or in Psalms 14: 2-3 and 53: 1-3 that I’m under the same thing.  Those verses read simply this: “The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.  They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”  Yes, my fellow, utterly lost brothers and sisters.  Not one is righteous.  No one does good, not even one.  That’s why we need to get down on our knees and thank God for Jesus Christ, who was the only truly righteous man.  We have to thank the Lord that he loved us enough to allow Christ’s righteousness to supplant our own, because we can’t do a damn thing without Him.  Let me rephrase that – we can do a whole lot of damn(ing) things without Him.

Lessons from Sophie

There’s a cat lives next door.  A beautiful black one that loves attention.  Sometimes,  she comes over to visit, and stays for a while.  Today (well, Saturday), on a day like any other, she comes over as she usually does.  I thought, though, that I smelled something a bit funny.  I did.  As she was getting ready to climb up on my lap, I noticed she had some fecal matter stuck to her back legs and tail.  I managed to avoid getting any of it on me, but as I was walking away to go about my business, I couldn’t help but think about the incident.  See, if I couldn’t bear to have the cat on my lap because of the dirt on her backside, I imagine that it’s got to be infinitely harder for the Father to have us nearby, stinking to high heaven with sin.  Yet He still loves His children…enough to wipe us up despite the mess.  Enough that He will still give us all the attention He does, and invite us in to His house.

Another thing about that cat…I love cats.  I’m a cat person.  Always have been.  Nearest thing I’d get ot a dog would be a beagle, and that’s just because of Porthos, Captain Archer’s dog from Star Trek: Enterprise.  Anyway, as I was saying…I love cats.  I give this one all the attention I can whenever I see her.  I love having her next door.  As I was walking, I thought ‘now here’s a little something about love – God loves us enough to clean up all the messes we make of ourselves.  Loves us enough to bear what we do and say to and about Him so, so many times in our lives.  Loves us enough to say ‘you need to be cleaned up…let Me do it’ despite it all.  I have to confess…this time, I’m glad the cat was someone else’s responsibility.  But in that, remember this: I left her to be dealt with by someone else, because I didn’t want to take a cloth to that cat’s butt. I left feeling relieved.  Is that how God deals with us?  My point in all this is actually twofold.  The first you;ve just read. The second…Love is willing to sacrifice enough to push pass the mess and the unpleasantness because the other needs help. To go back to Babylon 5…As the reverend tells Sheridan, when she [Delenn] offers to help Sheridan, it’s because she wants to be involved with his problems.  The line is great, but it’s been so long since I saw the episode that I forget exactly what it is.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer