Growing-up Loyal to Sin
This morning there are people who won't go to church because of what they did or allowed to be done around them last night. There are parents and grandparents and other care givers who won't take their children to church because deep down they want their children and grandchildren to be like them. In homes where there are drugs and alcohol and abuse children are taught to be fiercely loyal. Eventually, the children will be influenced and allowed to drink alcohol and use drugs from a young age thereby fitting in and ensuring loyalty to the family members.
I know this because of my own experience with my dad. He loved me the best he knew how. The easiest way for me to get along with him was to drink with him. When I stopped and started going to church with my boyfriend the intensity of the verbal and mental abuse was magnified. Thankfully, I have the peace of knowing that before my dad died he learned the meaning of grace and understood he was loved unconditionally.
He lived his life trying to live by the old covenant, the covenant law, which no human being can do. He felt shame and self condemnation because he struggled with the disease, alcoholism. Before he died he told me the family members who coerced him into drinking at a young age and how that impacted him and his life. He was thankful that I stopped drinking and didn't become an alcoholic or allow it to take hold. When we are set free we are free indeed.
We are none without sin. It is the human condition. But through Christ we can live under grace, in a loving relationship with our heavenly Father who gave his son to fulfill the old covenant so that we can live free from sin and death under the new covenant. I don't mean a completely sin free life; that we're perfect or expected to be perfect. We are expected to try, to do our very best, but are forgiven when we don't. I'm talking about perfect love, forgiveness, and cover for our sins because Jesus loved us enough that he gave his life for us so that we are no longer under the curse of the law. No, we won't be perfect. No, we can't go a day without sinning in our mind or actions most of the time. But by giving our heart to Jesus, being saved, and filled with Holy Spirit, God can change us little by little.
I know my own growth has taken years of undoing the strongholds in my heart and mind. But God is faithful. We change little by little daily to be more Christlike every day. And when we fail to be like Jesus he covers us with his love and grace. He makes atonement for us. He sits at the right hand of our Father making intercession for us. He has compassion on us and covers us with grace.
We are loved unconditionally. We are not judged by our sin. God judges us according to our heart. If you struggle with going to church or standing up in front of your peeps and saying I got saved, I'm a new man or woman, then you don't understand grace yet. Ask someone to explain it to you so you can live life free. There's nothing that compares to the joy, the perfect peace, the contentment, and the stillness in the soundness of your heart.
Written by: Lisa C.
