Note Card: Camouflaged In Plain Sight

Written on a 4x6 note card by Stan Julin.

1996

If we impute our evil behavior to old habits, then how is it that we beget children with the same evil behavior?  The (wrong) answer would be that they learn it from us.  So when we apply the rod of correction, we blame them for something our fault; we should chastise ourselves rather.  The answer is insufficient; it blames inheritance on environment.

And when we face our sins, how do we dispose of them, we who know the grace of God?  Do we confess them as habits?  The answer would be that we do not, for we are guilty; we just yielded to habits.  So then, God is being asked to hang blame on habits, not us?  We wiggled out?  I do not think it can be that easy.  God forgives sins, not habits, and he cleanses sinners, not habits.  Romans 7:17

And what is it that we are dealing with?  Filthy stains.  A thousand deaths.  Crimes that would ruin heaven as they have ruined earth.  Selfish corruptions.  The stench of them ought to make us vomit merely thinking of them.  The only way we can free ourselves is to grab the lifeline which God provided for us by robbing heaven.

What a story!  So fantastic that it must be true.  The plan of God is at the same time vast beyond imagination and simple and graphic and astonishingly straight forward.  One does not have to dig deeply, using various methods of Bible study and traipsing from book to book, from one translation to another as on a quest for the the right one.  It is right there on the surface in the Bible.  But God does not cast his pearls before swine; the secret of God is for those who fear him, who hope in his covenant.  It is on the surface but camouflaged.  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

He that finds his soul shall lose it.  What does this mean?  That we should not be on a quest to set out and to establish our soulish life.  Rather, we should seek the face of God, for then only will we be satisfied.  The books and the music of our era focus on the soulish life while appearing to be spiritual.  Our enemies laugh among themselves.