If you're anything like me, you forget the main thing. We're weak, you see, and everybody has that One Thing. We all think that everyone would hate us if they knew. Or, fair enough, you have a whole string of reasons to hate yourself. But the One Thing is the sin that makes you think it's all pointless, and you may as well give up. Not everyone's is the same, but everyone has it.
Despair is the enemy's favorite trick, because it becomes a feedback loop of failure and shame. If the enemy can make you think you are worthless, you'll stop reaching out to God and others. Faith is a great gift, because it illumines the Way, even when we have gone astray.
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It is fact; it is not conjecture, or sentiment. It has never meant that we have nothing left to reconcile. It does mean that God has taken an unyielding stance of favor toward every single one of us. As we get closer to God, the purity of His fiery love will test our feeble frame. But this time, what consumes does not destroy.
Within the mission logs of the USS Enterprise-D, under the command of gallant Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "Time Squared" was a mission that involved the sudden appearance of a dense singularity that threatened to pull the Enterprise into its center. The crew had the benefit of seeing an alternate future where they were all destroyed. It seemed to all appearances that the wisest course was to continue trying to escape. At certain points, it seemed the only course. Yet the answer was to turn toward the vortex, to stop fighting its pull.
The love of God is like this vortex. We may be convinced by all manner of things that the best move is to run away. But if we do, we invite our own destruction.
Despair is the enemy's favorite trick, because it becomes a feedback loop of failure and shame. If the enemy can make you think you are worthless, you'll stop reaching out to God and others. Faith is a great gift, because it illumines the Way, even when we have gone astray.
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It is fact; it is not conjecture, or sentiment. It has never meant that we have nothing left to reconcile. It does mean that God has taken an unyielding stance of favor toward every single one of us. As we get closer to God, the purity of His fiery love will test our feeble frame. But this time, what consumes does not destroy.
Within the mission logs of the USS Enterprise-D, under the command of gallant Captain Jean-Luc Picard, "Time Squared" was a mission that involved the sudden appearance of a dense singularity that threatened to pull the Enterprise into its center. The crew had the benefit of seeing an alternate future where they were all destroyed. It seemed to all appearances that the wisest course was to continue trying to escape. At certain points, it seemed the only course. Yet the answer was to turn toward the vortex, to stop fighting its pull.
The love of God is like this vortex. We may be convinced by all manner of things that the best move is to run away. But if we do, we invite our own destruction.
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