I was reminded by my computer this morning that I am a sinner.
Thanks alot, iMac.
It’s not fun to be confronted with a failure of faith.
In fact, it stinks.
But it’s better to get the bad news now and turn again to the Good News than it is to ignore the Good News now and be stuck forever with bad news.
You have certainly experienced the frustration of telling your computer to do something it was created to do and programmed to do, yet the blinking cursor mocks you and ignores you as if it is a defiant adolescent.
You paid a lot of money and put a lot of time into that computer and here it is treating you as irrelevant.
Something has failed and only frustration is resulting.
NEWS FLASH!!!! You and I are that computer in God’s sight.
He has put a lot of resources and thought and time and His Son’s sweat, tears and blood into creating us and programming us what to do, yet we sometimes ignore Him as if we’re blinking cursors, as if defiant adolescents.
He gives us instructions and we don’t do them.
We’re temporarily the “dumb computer!”
Disobedient is more accurate.
And that’s when we’ve sinned.
I am a sinner.
There are times that I realize I should have been praying more about a certain situation instead of leaning too heavily on my abilities or the abilities of others.
Knowing that I should be praying more but not doing it is a sin.
Ouch!
Do you fail in the same way?
Lest you think I am embellishing the cost of my neglect, look at what James writes in his biblical letter:
“Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” (James 4:17)
Oh my.
Whether it’s prayer or making an encouragement contact with a struggling church member or forgiving a co-worker who gossiped about you or catching up on your tithe checks at church that you didn’t give because you didn’t like what the preacher said — or whatever you know you should have done — please get back to the spiritual place God wants you to be.
I need to do the same.
Life is better when we’re saying “Yes” to God.
Really, there’s no good reason not to.
As always, I love you
Martin
