A response to my old pastor's blog, "How do YOU view God?":

What I have learned about God recently is that because He is holy, He requires a holy people to be in a relationship with them. And holy means completely separate from sin. And I have learned that humans can never be completely separate from sin, because when we fell, it touched absolutely everything, even down to our very bodies so that they become old and die. But that is why God sent Jesus down to earth, to live a holy life and then pay the sacrifice required to take ALL of our sin away. And if we just believe this, that is all it takes to be in a relationship with God! I don't actually have to do anything for my justification--what a freeing thought!!

However, I am still subject to sin, because I am still in imperfect human form, and will not be released from that until I die. But when I sin, it doesn't affect my salvation--not if I continue to believe and acknowledge that Jesus paid that price already. However, it does affect my relationship with God in a way, because when I sin, I feel guilty. I know I've messed up. And God makes my sins ever clearer to me the longer I know Him. But it comes down to how I respond to the guilt. Normally, I choose to be prideful and curl up in a ball and refuse to let God touch me because I still want to believe I'm perfect, even though I know I messed up. That's not what I'm supposed to do--instead I should go to God and admit, again, that I am not perfect. But that takes humility, which isn't something that comes naturally to me or any of us.

I stopped here because just about everything I had said in the 2nd paragraph made me stop and think.

1) "God makes my sins ever clearer to me the longer I know Him." This made me stop short as I realized I was basically employing a metaphor Stephen's mom shared with him once about sin and our relationship with God. She said it was like driving into the sun with a dirty windshield--the closer you get to the sun, the clearer the dirt shows up on your windshield.

2) "Normally, I choose to be prideful and curl up in a ball and refuse to let God touch me." This is very much a fact, but it's taking me a while to figure out why this is true. I think it has to do with what I wrote--it's a pride issue. I don't want to admit I'm wrong. But that seems too shallow of an answer at this point in time. I think there must be something deeper to it than just that. It just seems to "pat" at this point in time, too Sunday-schoolish.

3) "Instead I should go to God and admit, again, that I am not perfect. But that takes humility." I stopped here because I couldn't figure out where to go next. If humility is something that comes from God, but I can't be really in relationship with God without humility, but my sinful nature causes me to not be humble--how do I get back into a healthy relationship with God??

It led me back to one of my perpetual questions with God. Why does a sovereign God let me act against Him? I can't get my head around it.

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