This Mess We're In

We are all pretty messed up. We may not want to believe this but any honest assessment of ourselves will reveal that much of our lives are rooted in self-deception. This delusion typically manifests itself in the belief that we are something greater than what we truly are. This also crosses over into how we view other people. Sadly, we find comfort in looking to other people we consider worse than us. The Jerry Springer show wasn't popular because of its educational content.

We can't talk about self-deception unless we agree that there is a truth we are being deceived from. What is truth? God is absolute truth and He has revealed Himself to us. He has primarily revealed Himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ and through His sacred scriptures. Things get confusing when we attempt to gain a better understanding of things apart from Him. We don't know where to start. There are a million different reasons why we do what we do. But we tend to oversimplify in our thinking and box up our lives so everything is manageable. All the while we're like the clueless hoarder burying ourselves in our own trash. From our perspective we have it all together because ultimately we make ourselves out to be the rulers of our own world. This is the mess we're in, and it's called sin.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:11-14

This type of thinking manifests itself in all kinds of ways. For example, if we are politically minded at all we can practically feel the tunnel vision settle in whenever we're exposed to a different viewpoint. Or even in something as simple as getting angry in traffic. Everyone should know the road revolves around our vehicle. We're all self-righteous, arrogant, and foolish. This sounds harsh but it's who we are and it's how we treat each other.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. James 4:1-2

Recognizing we are part of the mess of this world is only the beginning. On some level everyone recognizes this whether they'll admit it or not. We're simply a broken people. The real problem lies in how we're all trying to get out if it. Life for us is a constant pursuit to find justification. We say to ourselves, "I need to be liked, I need to be successful and secure, I have to be accomplished in order to matter," or in other words, "I need to save myself." We're convinced our identity and existence is defined by what we do to find justification. Why do you think we are all so scared to die? It's because our life is bound up in the world of our own making and on some level we know we're too messed up to save ourselves.

We also have a tendency to forget that God's standard for acceptance is absolute perfection. So we attempt to make the grade on our own. We think that if we do enough good God will be obligated to reward us. Before God, we are not relatively good people but absolutely unrighteous people. The good news is that God has done the work necessary for our salvation. He has made the grade on our behalf.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Romans 3:23

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1:8

The perfect righteousness of Jesus provides a way in which we can be brought into His family. God's holiness and justice require our unrighteousness to be punished. He could have chosen to completely destroy us. Instead, He chose to punish our sin upon Christ. Jesus, the perfect God-Man, bore the full judgement of our sin upon Himself and has appeased God's righteous wrath. Now, Christ's righteousness is imputed to all who believe upon Him which enables us to be brought into His presence.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit 1 Peter 3:18

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God." John 3:16-18

Scott D.