Doug Van Pelt

Obadiah

What a great name. If I had a son, his name would surely be Obadiah. Of this I jest. The vision of Obadiah brings to mind something interesting that befalls us believers -- pride.

"'The pride of your heart has deceived you,
you who live in the clefts of the rocks
and make your home on the heights,
you who say to yourself,
'Who can bring me down to the ground?'
Though you soar like the eagle
and make your nest among the stars,
from there I will bring you down,'
declares the Lord."

Sometimes we get a little arrogant towards non-believers. We smugly and wryly "read their minds" and "see" the lust, greed, selfish and gluttonous attitudes that live in those "sinners'" hearts. 'We used to be one,' we think, 'so we know how they operate.

This is kind of like the father of daughters who remembers the kind of mindset he had when he was 16, 17, 18, and doesn't trust any guys that approach his daughter. 'I know what's on their minds,' he muses. It's good that we can still remember the depraved minds we once fed (I guess it has some benefits), but the problem with this is we are not giving people the slack and grace that our Father in Heaven does. If we are going to be mean, unloving, and mistrusting towards non-believers, how are they ever going to find God's love? How on earth could we have been saved if God had not looked past our sin to lovingly save us?

While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

I once had a cool impression in my imagination during a worship time. I guess one might call it a "vision." I was at the foot of the cross during the pain and anguish of Christ's crucifixion. You know, he had to press his feat up against that stake that probably pinched many major nerves, pushing against the splinters of the rough wood, and possibly dislocating his shoulders just to take one breath. In the midst of that pain, I was raising my arms to Him and just praising Him and declaring my love for Him. And He looked down on me and smiled. While that image makes me think that Jesus was "looking" into the future and the by-product of people worshiping Him and adoring Him, which made Him realize that His tough and dying work was well worth it, and it made Him smile.

A more accurate vision might've been that while on the cross He looked into the future in 1982 and saw me drunk with friends and forcing a guy who threw up at the party to ride home in my trunk (!), or the time I tied up a dog and threw rocks at it, or the time I put some used gum on the seat of the girl in front of me, ruining her nice new dress. It would be accurate, too, to fathom that Christ saw me doing this stuff when He died. He saw me at my worst -- in the midst of my sin -- when He willingly died for me. I'm really no better than the guy in New Orleans who took advantage of the hurricane by raping a defenseless woman and stealing a tv set.

If we can keep a balanced perspective of living in the light and walking in His way, but also realizing that we don't deserve His mercy and we're only walking in His power and His Spirit; then we might not be so arrogant towards "sinners."

(That's the perfect word to signify the self-righteousness of the person saying it. It almost thrusts itself down the nose of the person saying, "sinner." Perhaps we should all wear a scarlet letter -- the letter "S" for sinner, or the letter "L" for loser.)

There's a difference between wallowing in our failure and focusing on our status (or former status) as sinners and realizing that we are just a beggar telling another beggar where to find bread -- a sinner saved by grace. And there's also a difference between the uppity self-righteous person and someone who turns from sin and walks in God's ways, leaving behind the practice of or the "life of sin." It is somewhere in those differences that we must dwell. Not staying in our state of death and sin, but not gloating over the fact that we've been saved, either.

The Mighty Jeremiahs, featuring Greg Martin of the Kentucky Headhunters, has some fun blues songs, like "Ole Cheap Bottle of Wine," which sings, "My life used to be like an ole cheap bottle of wine / no matter how hard I tried, it never got better with time..."
:?)

[pictured above: me and john having fun in california. john wilson was "butch," the bass player for lust control.]

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at September 7, 2005 09:52 AM