Complete and Effective Decision About Sin

    From My Utmost for His Highest

. . . our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin —Romans 6

Let’s all admit that Oswald Chambers is advanced. Like a yoga student and his instructor, sometimes I have to stretch and work and try really hard to get my mind into the position that Chambers poses easily.

To get to the point of deciding that sin “must be completely killed in you,” the fastest way I know is to remember your place in the Gospel story. The following is from A Rooster Once Crowed, but if you’d prefer click here to see the video. Otherwise:

Imagine you’re a parent, and you have two children—a boy and a girl.

Your boy is a high school all-American and an honor student who. . .

. . . loves and serves you unconditionally. He has a heart for others and from a young age, every person he has met left conversations with him thinking he will own the world someday. And you agree. He goes to college on a full scholarship, playing a sport you love like you’ve never seen anyone play it before. He chose that college because it was where he thought you wanted him to go. He graduates, works for a while and gets married. You love his wife and, when the three of you are together, you orbit around each other. Each of you competes to love the other two more. Then, he quits his job to go back to law school in a faraway city for admirable reasons. You’re proud of him and just can’t believe you’re connected to this person. Knowing that he loves you nearly breaks you in two.

You have a daughter, too. She is strong and beautiful but, from an early age, she has shown an uncanny ability to make wrong decisions. If you’ve been around someone like this, you know that after a while, they’re choosing only from a menu of bad choices. There are no good choices left. She steals from you and curses at you. Things get so bad that her presence in your home hurts you, and she feels the exact same way. In the last couple of years, you’ve become estranged.

One day, you’re in the kitchen when the phone rings. The conversation goes something like this: “You won’t remember me, but I’m a friend of your daughter and we’re into some really bad stuff. The worst kind of stuff, and she’s been sold to some really bad people. They’re moving us around a lot, and I heard them say they’re taking her overseas tonight. I didn’t have anyone else to call. We’re at this address and, if you want to see her again, she’ll be here for the next four hours, but…”

The line goes dead.

As you hang up the phone, you realize that the address she has given you is in the same distant city where your son is attending law school. There is no way for you to make it there in four hours—but your son could.

Do you send him? Do you send your only son to save your daughter?

But what if you know—and I can’t tell you how you know, but you know—that your son will not make it out alive, will you send your son to save your daughter? {TWEET}

If you know, and I can’t tell you how you know, but if you know your son will die an unspeakably painful death that would not necessarily save her, will you still send him? Will you send him if his sacrifice only guarantees her three steps outside the door and that, once there, she can make a choice?

Would you make that sacrifice knowing that she may walk back into that house? Would you make that sacrifice to give her the chance to run home to you? Could you even take her back? She might decide to stay there, on the porch, managing her life—understanding the sacrifice made on her behalf, but just too scared or attached to run home? Will she accept the sacrifice, but deny its cost and choose to live closer, but not altogether back with you?

This story became real to me once I realized that each morning when I wake up, I’m that girl on the porch, three steps outside the door, deciding which of those choices I’m going to make. {TWEET} Will I honor the sacrifice that allowed me to see the light of day, or will I choose to walk back into that house?

What is it that makes us repeatedly go back inside? An addiction or vice? Family or charity? It doesn’t have to be a bad thing that keeps us there.

In the end, where I move from that porch tells me and my God whether I am a person that “couldn’t not” enter into the love and care of Him, or a person who just won’t. {TWEET}

EXCERPTED FROM A Rooster Once Crowed: A Commentary on the Greatest Story Ever Told, Chapter 1—A View from the Porch… (pgs. 13-15) WHICH IS FREE ACROSS ALL PLATFORMS OF EBOOK THROUGH EASTER. AVAILABLE FORMATS are linked at Full Porch Press.

That story is not the only way, but without a deeply personal view of the Cross, a complete and effective decision about sin is impossible. {TWEET} Do that work first and the decision will come naturally.

I love you.

#aviewfromtheporch