Romans 7 (a personal Meditation)
Tonight, I am borderline depressed. I am reading and re reading these scriptures and I find myself at a different cross roads or conclusion. I don't want to be delivered from the death rather I embrace the death. I want my raging lenses, habits and self-aggrandizement to be murdered ruthlessly and forever. I hate the man that ignores people.
I hate the man that says one thing and does another. I hate the man who pounds his chest while cowering in fear when no one is looking and I hate the man who cuts corners and allows the pressures of the world to take him out of rhythm with YHWH. I really am ready to never again bring up the past, good or bad. I want that old man to be dead and gone and for the new day to dawn. Oh Death bring thy stinger. Bring thy stinger now. Plunge it deep into my heart of flesh and put me out of the place where I bring so much misery to so many.
I have taken spoils - the lion's share on many occasion and have left the scraps for others more often than not. I have given in measured cupfuls when there was more to give, and I have only rationed out my commitment and my attention and it is time for all of this half effort and half heartedness to end. Kill that now. I offer it up. I offer it up and I want never to forget how I feel this night. As I wretch, let me spit up and out once and for all the vomit of my selfish nature. Let my bile be seen by all that will look and by all that will judge me, for what they see will be more true than not, as I move from here to where I want to be, knowing that I cannot get to the Spirit -- to life -- without dying first. So, tonight I die. I die. I kill my selfish dreams. I kill my selfish fears and aspirations for it seems that they are inseparable as I ponder whether or not I post this lamentation.
Is it good for you to see me this way. Is it good for you to see what you will actually have to do to find life. Will you continue? Will you wretch? Will you lament? Will you search until your clothes fall off? And after your garments and your masks fall to the ground will you search till food no longer tastes good and the opinions of men mean next to nothing? Will you search for life that is real and alive and available in Him and in Him alone? I hope that after I die, that I will find the strength to rise... to try at least to get up to rise ...
It's dark tonight... But I do see the light... but I choose not to let myself -- or you off the hook as it pierces my heart this night for I have masqueraded for 25 years and none of my teachers confronted me to tell me that I was far from the life that was promised. They told me that I had it and they lied, but not really, because they didn't know for they didn't have it themselves. So, tonight -- I weep -- and I will weep until I can weep no more and then I am going to pursue -- and I will overtake and recover all - for you and for me.
I blame no one. I am not ashamed. In fact I rejoice for this night I truly understand that we overcome by the word of our testimony and by the blood of the lamb -- loving not our lives unto the death.
I don't love this earthly - sensual - carnal - fleshly life. But I do love you -- even in the flesh for I know how truly real the struggle is. I weep for you.
Tears well, but they do not fall -- bringing me no comfort.
My breath is short and my mouth is dry...
And with my intellect and memory I dare to try ...
Reaching out to someone who will hear me on this night of nights...
Knowing that my cries will probably cause you bewilderment or worse -- confusion --
After years and years of exhortation --
Yes, it's true the Word of Yah is sharper than a two-edged sword... and it divides tonight cutting me deeply both my soul and my spirit and the cuts are deep...
As I choose to move the cursor to the place where you will be allowed to read I wonder what my motives are as the sword cuts deeper revealing the thoughts and the intents of my heart.
Am I writing to inform or am I writing for your approval? Is it for you or for me? And what if it is for me... would that be wrong? I search ...
As I sit knowing full well the extent of my sin -- I revel in the truth that my deliverance has come and when I wake tomorrow to stand before you and others, His love will be in my heart and in my mouth -- for though I know better than to think that I am worthy, He has counted me as one of His Sons...
Oh, Death where is thy sting?
Rom 7:1- 8:1 (mes)
1Do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to men who know the law—that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? 2For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. 3So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
4So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Struggling With Sin
7What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet."[b] 8But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.
11For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. 13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Comments
Posted On
May 25, 2010Posted By
Good word Pastor Dan
Posted On
May 27, 2010Posted By
Pastor Dan,
Now that is what I have been taught which is called getting or taking the MASK off and being transparent and real... It is encouraging for me a 30 year believer who has not arrived yet to see seasoned leaders set the example. Was in you service Sunday and I did see a new man. PG!Amen.
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