The Journey...The Story...The Broken...The Beaten and the Damned" - con't...

I am attempting to create, to paint pictures from my story onto the canvas of this blog so as to in some limited way record my life and in so doing maybe find out who I am. Through writing, images, songs, videos, poetry…or whatever means try and tell my story…only grace makes my existence worthwhile, or sustainable, and maybe being real will help someone else. I don’t know though…recently I was accused of being phony and all “…the cup of grace stuff…” being phony as well, as if what I write and post here is not real or not who I really am.

Hmmmm…

Not sure how to respond to that – I am a sinner, I fuck up a lot, I swear, I drink, hang out at bars, go to church, believe Jesus lived, died and rose again for me, that he loves me and his grace is sufficient…

I am in solidarity with Paul, in that, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life”
(1Timothy 1:15-16 TNIV).

And…

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now 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. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin” (Romans 7:15-25).

And this from John,

“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us” (1John 1:5-10).

What do you do with that…being human…still in “the deceptive state of being” – o.k. maybe I am a phony, a hypocrite, a sinner, but I ask who isn’t or who has not been other than Jesus? Isn’t that the point – why Jesus came? To save, “…the broken, the beaten and the damned…” isn’t that why he hung out with the misfits, the failures, the phonies, the sinners, the broken people? He is the Savior! It doesn’t matter how fucked up we are – he saves! He loves! He knows! He is compassion!

So yes, I am a phony, as phony as Peter when he denied Jesus, as phony as Thomas when he doubted, as phony as Paul when he failed, as phony as any follower of Jesus as we all are on a journey that none of us has arrived at the end of yet…we are stumbling along…and it is only through the grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus that we can even begin to be in any sense not phony.

So what else can I say? I am what I am…and is that not why there is grace…?