If you are ever in the mood to feel guilty about your life, you should probably just read the first five books of the Bible.
In those books there some very long lists of sins we didn’t even know existed that we could easily blacken our consciousness' with. Didn’t know you should feel bad about cutting the hair on the side of your head? Well Leviticus 19:27 says you should be, apparently God really digs sideburns. If you read earlier in that chapter in verse 19 you will find that you are also a dirty rotten sinner for wearing clothing woven out of two different kinds of fabrics. Think you are innocent of this one? What about that T shirt you have that says it’s made of 99% cotton? What’s the other one percent? What do you have to say for yourself Mr. half-breed polyester?
Deuteronomy 22:12 tells us to make tassels to wear on the four corners of our cloak. What!? You mean to tell me that you haven’t made your own tassels and fastened them to the corners of all your cloaks? You don’t even wear a cloak? I don’t know how you expect to make it to heaven.
If reading all these laws doesn’t make you feel guilty, you should at least feel guilty about not being able to get through the book of Leviticus.
It is ridiculous to think of anyone looking for things to feel guilty for but I think we do it all the time. We walk around with huge signs on our foreheads advertising all of our failures and mistakes because we think it will explain to the world why were are what we are today. We know we aren’t good enough for God’s grace and for some reason, we keep looking through our past to find more proof that we don’t deserve it.
In Exodus we find a people plagued with guilt. God gave them the opportunity to pay for their crimes by having the priests offer sacrifices on behalf on the people. In order to do so, the priest would have to enter the Holy of Holies, the place where God Himself dwelled. The priest had to walk in with the guilt of his people and know that at any moment God literally could strike him down and that He had every right to do so. Bells were fastened to the edge of his garment and a long rope was tied around his waist just in case, should God’s wrath be so fitting, that the priest fell down dead before the Lord, the people on the other side of the curtain would hear the bells and be able to reel in the body of their priest.
The people recognized their guilt and recognized the holiness of their God and had to walk with the stains of everything they had done wrong trailing behind them into the presence of God.
There was, however, another article of priestly clothing that is generally overlooked and was ordained by God to be worn. On the turban of the priest was to be a sign made of pure gold that read “Holy to the Lord.” Try and imagine this.
The priest would walk in with the guilt of his people behind him and the full awareness that he could die for his crimes but all God would see coming towards him was this sign on his forehead that read “Holy to the Lord.”
He wasn’t looking at all that was behind him, He was looking at the sign that said that this man and the people he represented were holy- set apart and purified, and that they were good enough to walk into His presence.
We as people tend to view our lives from the lens of our past. We take all of our past experiences and put them together as the basis for our identity and expect that God does the same thing. We forget that God is bigger than our understanding of time. He gets to see our lives from the lens of our future. In His perspective, we are already standing beside Him in paradise as completed and perfected souls who’s robes have been washed clean and crowns already rewarded. He sees us how we actually are.
Who are we to see ourselves otherwise?
If you are accused of a crime, you always have one of two options. You could either plead innocent, or you could plead guilty. However, in some cases a third option is given, that is, the right to plead “Nolo Contendere.” Nolo contendere is Latin for “I do not wish to contend.” It basically means that you are accepting the punishment for the charges you are accused of but you don’t have to live the rest of your life with the word “guilty” all over your record.
I think it is time that we as Christians plead Nolo Contendere over our lives. We accept that we deserve the punishment for our crimes and that we don’t deserve the grace of God, but are refusing to walk around with guilt labeled on our foreheads. We will not let guilt be the motive for everything we do.
We will go to church because want to be with God and His people, not because we feel like we owe God.
We will share our faith with the world because we get to, not because we have to to make sure we are good Christians.
We are guilty, but that is not how we are defined.
In those books there some very long lists of sins we didn’t even know existed that we could easily blacken our consciousness' with. Didn’t know you should feel bad about cutting the hair on the side of your head? Well Leviticus 19:27 says you should be, apparently God really digs sideburns. If you read earlier in that chapter in verse 19 you will find that you are also a dirty rotten sinner for wearing clothing woven out of two different kinds of fabrics. Think you are innocent of this one? What about that T shirt you have that says it’s made of 99% cotton? What’s the other one percent? What do you have to say for yourself Mr. half-breed polyester?
Deuteronomy 22:12 tells us to make tassels to wear on the four corners of our cloak. What!? You mean to tell me that you haven’t made your own tassels and fastened them to the corners of all your cloaks? You don’t even wear a cloak? I don’t know how you expect to make it to heaven.
If reading all these laws doesn’t make you feel guilty, you should at least feel guilty about not being able to get through the book of Leviticus.
It is ridiculous to think of anyone looking for things to feel guilty for but I think we do it all the time. We walk around with huge signs on our foreheads advertising all of our failures and mistakes because we think it will explain to the world why were are what we are today. We know we aren’t good enough for God’s grace and for some reason, we keep looking through our past to find more proof that we don’t deserve it.
In Exodus we find a people plagued with guilt. God gave them the opportunity to pay for their crimes by having the priests offer sacrifices on behalf on the people. In order to do so, the priest would have to enter the Holy of Holies, the place where God Himself dwelled. The priest had to walk in with the guilt of his people and know that at any moment God literally could strike him down and that He had every right to do so. Bells were fastened to the edge of his garment and a long rope was tied around his waist just in case, should God’s wrath be so fitting, that the priest fell down dead before the Lord, the people on the other side of the curtain would hear the bells and be able to reel in the body of their priest.
The people recognized their guilt and recognized the holiness of their God and had to walk with the stains of everything they had done wrong trailing behind them into the presence of God.
There was, however, another article of priestly clothing that is generally overlooked and was ordained by God to be worn. On the turban of the priest was to be a sign made of pure gold that read “Holy to the Lord.” Try and imagine this.
The priest would walk in with the guilt of his people behind him and the full awareness that he could die for his crimes but all God would see coming towards him was this sign on his forehead that read “Holy to the Lord.”
He wasn’t looking at all that was behind him, He was looking at the sign that said that this man and the people he represented were holy- set apart and purified, and that they were good enough to walk into His presence.
We as people tend to view our lives from the lens of our past. We take all of our past experiences and put them together as the basis for our identity and expect that God does the same thing. We forget that God is bigger than our understanding of time. He gets to see our lives from the lens of our future. In His perspective, we are already standing beside Him in paradise as completed and perfected souls who’s robes have been washed clean and crowns already rewarded. He sees us how we actually are.
Who are we to see ourselves otherwise?
If you are accused of a crime, you always have one of two options. You could either plead innocent, or you could plead guilty. However, in some cases a third option is given, that is, the right to plead “Nolo Contendere.” Nolo contendere is Latin for “I do not wish to contend.” It basically means that you are accepting the punishment for the charges you are accused of but you don’t have to live the rest of your life with the word “guilty” all over your record.
I think it is time that we as Christians plead Nolo Contendere over our lives. We accept that we deserve the punishment for our crimes and that we don’t deserve the grace of God, but are refusing to walk around with guilt labeled on our foreheads. We will not let guilt be the motive for everything we do.
We will go to church because want to be with God and His people, not because we feel like we owe God.
We will share our faith with the world because we get to, not because we have to to make sure we are good Christians.
We are guilty, but that is not how we are defined.
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