We are therefore Christ’s Ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20)
by Seth Halpern Editor The recent U.S. Budget and debt crisis has brought to the forefront a realization that many of us are in denial of our nation’s financial situation. Amidst the verbal assaults within the legislature, it is producing a “wake up call” for the average citizen as we are coming face to face with our national debt. While this situation ends up in another political wrestling match, I pause to wonder in how many things in our lives are we really in denial. Many of us are in denial of our own individual or family spending habits. Loading ourselves up with credit card debt or unreasonable mortgages, we try to live out the American dream in the midst of the American “nightmare”-our economy. Taken a step further, many of us are in denial about more personal matters: An unhealthy relationship, substance dependency, nutritional imbalance, perhaps. We generally, want things to continue as we would like without the need to change. Deeper still, most of us if we are honest, deny God. Perhaps we deny his existence in our beliefs or more commonly in our lifestyle. Although surveys often show 80-90% of Americans believe in God. It is difficult to reconcile that with the reality of rampant abortion, sexual immorality, and brutal violence. That said, many of those “80-90% ‘ers” may “believe” in a god of some sort. I think that most of us would like to know that someone is “watching out” for us or that we can call on someone to help us in a time of need. Unfortunately, that is not the heart of the Gospel. The heart of the Gospel has to do with the one thing we MOST deny and that is our own individual inadequacy. Many, including those who call upon the name of Christ,
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consider themselves holy, when what they (and we) are is wholly inadequate. “We the People…” of this great nation have developed a prideful arrogance that insists that we are “good”. Unfortunately, the Bible says otherwise. If we were “good” there would be no reason for the death of Christ the Son of God. But we are not “good” and so He took our sins so that we can be made holy. Sin, which is not spoken of often, even in many churches, is the most deceptive and costly of all our denials. To deny that we sin, is to say that Jesus died for nothing. But it is our sin, all of it, that put Him to death. Sin is not often discussed because it is politically incorrect and “offensive”. It is much easier to discuss things as diseases, syndromes, preferences and the like. Yet sin is the virus of the soul. I recently had my computer restored from a virus. It is not an enjoyable experience. If only it was as simple as just finding the problem and getting rid of it. If I could just find the problem file that someone rudely (much too nice a word) put on my most important tool and delete it, I would have done so. It is not quite that easy, however. The virus is difficult to detect because it infects many other files, many of which are necessary. In fact, it is
August 2011
possible to have a computer virus as I did and not even realize it until the computer begins to slow down more and more and starts to destroy other working programs little by little. I tried to get rid of the culprit, but it would pop up in other places under other names. Soon I could not know what was a real file and what was a virus. The solution was to re-format the entire hard drive. For some of you, that simply means it all had to be erased and reinstalled with clean software. It is now basically a new system. Unfortunately, I’ve had to adapt, re-learn where things are and reinstall necessary files and programs. On the other hand, it is a new, fresh computer with no problems. As citizens of the human race, we are like this in a spiritual way. We may try to remove the virus of sin ourselves, but we need the Creator to “reformat” us. We may need to learn some new things and avoid old habits. But it is only through His grace and power that we are made new. Books, seminars, and whatever else can help AFTER you have reformatted. Otherwise, the virus of sin is going to slow you down until you are unusable for God. If you have not already done so, let the One who created you, give you new life. He promises to give us a new heart and exchange your virus of sin for freedom and life in Christ.. It may take time
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to learn some new ways but the freedom and experience is well worth it. If you have already been “reformatted” or more correctly, redeemed, know that although the innate pull of sin has been released, the lure of our enemy is strong. He will seek to occupy our minds with thoughts that deny the power of God and will strive to get us to deny , or at least doubt God’s love for us. It is time to refuse his deceptive invitation to return to old habits and to instead run to God in repentance and start (or restart) your way to victory over evil. We have a problem. It is that we deny the very thing that is killing us as individuals, families, churches and nations. If we deny that we are infected by sin, we will not want to talk about it. We will deny that people are going to hell, because it is not politically correct and may offend some. Our denial as a nation, as individuals and especially as the church will prove to cost us greatly.
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The Ambassador
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