Sin, pride and what really matters.

As I said, I've been reading and studying the Book of Job. Last week I came across this passage in chapter 35.

6 If you sin, how does that affect (God)?
If your sins are many, what does that do to him?
7 If you are righteous, what do you give to him,
or what does he receive from your hand?
8 Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself,
and your righteousness only the sons of men.

That's kind of weird, don't you think? So many Christians are concerned over offending God with their personal and national actions, yet in this series of sentences it states that God is not really concerned about out sins. Or our righteousness

Pride is the core of all sin. I'm not alone in that observation. When you think you know better than your creator, you have an issue with pride. Most people do the wrong thing when they believe they are too smart to get caught or because they really don;t believe that what they are going to do is wrong, even when everyone else says it is. But even if you are doing the right thing, you can still be dealing with pride.

In the church, there is a real pride issue in the belief that it is possible to thwart the plan of God in the world through our actions. Many in the church justify that position by calling certain actions as "compromising the Gospel." In other words, you do something that goes counter to the culture of your church (e.g. going to see a particular movie or reading a certain book) and you will be told you are free to do that, but if others see you do it, you could cause them to stumble and "compromise the gospel."

Number one, that is a very weird definition of "gospel." Gospel means "good news" and that news is that Jesus Christ died for everyone's sin since the beginning of time, for now and into the future. It means that there is nothing we can do to make us any closer or send us farther away from God. Everything we have done wrong has been taken care of.

Second, if that is true, there is nothing we can do to make God love us even more.

What we do affects only us and those we connect with. That makes all our actions very personal in nature.

You get what you are obsessed with

I've been spending several week studying Job, because when life sucks (as it does for most of us) it helps to get perspective from a guy whose suckitude quotient is higher than most people on earth will ever experience.

For those not familiar with Job, it's the book just before Psalms in the Old Testament and tells the story of a wealthy but really great guy (feeds the poor, helps sick people does everything right) who gets attacked for no good reason, his family killed his wealth taken and his body start falling apart, all at the same time.  The he is surrounded by a bunch of friends who tell him he must have some "secret sin" in his life and God is out to get him for good reason.  Even his wife tells him to just give up and die.  I recommend reading it, because it at least has a happy ending.

But what I wanted to talk about is something from the last third of the book, where one of the friends -- the youngest who goes by the name of Elihu -- starts laying down some good advice.  As I was reading it this week, it hit me right between the eyes because it explains a lot of what is going on in the church.  The passage is in Chapter 36, starting in verse 16.  Elihu says:

¹⁶ “God is leading you away from danger, Job,
      to a place free from distress.
      He is setting your table with the best food.
 ¹⁷ But you are obsessed with whether the godless will be judged.
      Don’t worry, judgment and justice will be upheld.

That's a great description of where the church is today.  The opportunity for significant advances are right there, but rather than concentrate on reaching people for Christ, they are screaming about injustice and unrighteousness.  The result is a world who no longer believes the church represents God.

There's the real problem in religious life right now.  I know a lot of atheists and agnostics.  In my discussions with them it becomes clear, early on, that the issue is not that they don't believe in God, or that they don't really know if God exists.  What they say is that they don't believe in the God, ore even the Jesus, that the church demonstrates today.  I can't say I blame them.  I don't even believe in the God that is demonstrated by the church today.  I know a completely different God; one that is concerned with the cause of "sin" rather than the sin itself.

And that's a completely different discussion.