How to Start 2008

A new perception of Sin:

A wise friend of mine once said "there is no such thing as an acceptable level of sin"

I commented recently, when this same friend was speaking at Oak Grove, that he always stirs things up.

In human terms we have our 'moral scale' so certain actions are 'worse' than others. This scale is helpful for writing law, but is not really any use when thinking about God, Sin and Us.

In reality, we are either separated from God, or we are not. Any Sin can do this but God's Grace and Mercy can cover these sins. Jesus made that possible.

So what about those sins that you keep on doing? Even if you do confess them and want to give them up to God and accept His forgiveness?

John Ortberg - The Life You've Always Wanted

...sin is often the attempt to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. If we don't address that need in appropriate ways, we will go right on sinning.

Back at the Willow Creek GLS, John Ortberg talked about 'Shadow Mission'. Put simply, say God has called you to serve homeless people or go to Ethiopia that would be your 'Mission'. Your 'Shadow Mission's purpose is to stop you working on/completing your 'Mission'. So instead of serving homeless people, you allow your time to be wasted watching TV or playing video games. I think that you can identify your 'Shadow Mission' by looking at those Sins that just won't go away. Your areas of easiest temptation perhaps. If you follow what John Ortberg is talking about in the above quote, then forgiveness is not necessarily the end of a Sin.

Addressing the root cause or need is the only way to avoid making the same mistakes again.

So, How to start 2008? Identify your Mission. Identify your Shadow Mission and deal with both of them.

I do wonder if most of us would have to identify our Shadow Mission and start to deal with it before God could release us in to our mission?