Not dead yet… It really is the perfect title for my life right now. In just a few days I will be turning 45 years old, getting close to a half century. Probably over half my life gone. Most of it wasted. Most of it waiting to die. Most of just wanting to die, not really understanding I already was dead. So here I am once more on the playground of the broken hearts (a song lyric that I used to start many journal entries) and yet my heart is broken, maybe not in the way you expect. Yet my heart sings. My soul tries to thrive in what God has given me. I have so much I have to learn. I have so much that I need to understand. There is hope, not in myself, but hope in God. How can I study, read, and pray to God and not find hope. The enemy keeps trying to destroy me but I am not dead yet.
I am not dead yet. It is a good thought. It is a good theme for where I am at. It is a positive. The enemy wants me to give up. The enemy wants me to fade away and die. Everyday I fight that battle.
The battle is the same. The memories of my life, the people I hurt, the things I screwed up, the games I play, the women I slept with or lusted after, the people I hurt, the people I lied to, the things I stole, and every single rotten, stupid and embarrassing thing that I have done come back to haunt me and it comes back often, daily, many times a day. The enemy keeps coming back and saying. You deserve to die. It is time for you to die. Every time I mess up, every time I make a fool out of myself he comes to try to convince me to give up and die. You know what the enemy is right. I deserve death. I deserve Hell, every part of my soul knows that. And yet… And yet…
The gospel, the gospel oh my Lord the glorious gospel. I think maybe in the tiniest way I am beginning to get it. How do I explain how I revel in the glorious gospel. How do I explain to those who have never really experienced the need for the gospel. How do I explain it is my only hope. The only way that I have a chance for life. The only way the gospel works is if I truly accept the fact that I deserve hell, I deserve to be nailed to the cross, for every single sin that I have ever done or ever will do. Over and over again punished and tortured in the worse of ways for the sins I have done. The gospel only works when I face the fact that I rebelled, defied and despised God. The gospel only works when I come face to face with the fact I have done everything the accuser says and deserves every bit of the wrath of God.
And yet…
The gospel doesn’t depend on who I am, what I do, how good I am or any subjective measure or effort that I could expend. Look at me, who the hell am I. I am a fat, old, prideful, stupid foolish, worthless man who has delusions of grandeur and worth and just one of the walking dead.
What the gospel depends on is the rock hard objective fact of Christ on the Cross. The gospel is authored through the fiery love of our Creator God. The God who chose to love those, who hate him in everything they do, He gave His most treasured Son to save a wretch, to save a worm like me. He killed His Son on the cross to take my sin and raised Him to defeat death and give life.
In John 11 Jesus calls Lazurus back from the dead. In that same way he starts my dead heart beating and brings me from death to life. I am finally beginning to understand there is NOTHING I can do to save my life. It doesn’t matter if I like myself or not. It doesn’t matter if I am married or not. It doesn’t matter if I have a lot of friends or if I am alone. It doesn’t matter if I have the job I want or not. It doesn’t matter if I am treated the way I want to be. What matter is what happened on a cross on a hill in Jerusalem 2000 years ago.
I lost this truth for a while, maybe I never had it, I don’t know, but God has revealed it to be me again. God has taken the stone that is my heart and breathed life into it and made it start beating again. There is hope where I never thought I would feel hope again.
Though I may lose sight of this at times, I pray that you help me keep rediscovering this truth over and over.
Entries (RSS)