“I need to ask you a question.” When the girls and I are together and turn our attention from the children to chat, this is Thomas and Amelia’s favorite interrupter. It’s their attempt at polite manners. “What do you need?” “Timothy was trying to knock over my tower or Ezra jerked that from me.” “That’s not a question. That’s a statement and I was watching. He had it first. Just play.”
After a few more questions, we continue on with our conversation and usually the kids settle in to playing like typical toddlers, separately but in the same space. We all know it won’t last for long but maybe we’ll get to finish our coffee before the next squabble. They’re not being intentionally troublesome. They’re little kids and they enjoy undivided attention, not unlike us, so we give it to them often but we’re training them not to depend on it always. Eventual independence is the goal but there’s plenty of time for that.
“What is the cause of your conflicts and quarrels with each other?
Doesn’t the battle begin inside of you as you fight to have your own way and fulfill your own desires?
You jealously want what others have so you begin to see yourself as better than others.
You scheme with envy and harm others to selfishly obtain what you crave—that’s why you quarrel and fight.
And all the time you don’t obtain what you want because you won’t ask God for it!
And if you ask, you won’t receive it for your asking with corrupt motives, seeking only to fulfill your own selfish desires.”
James 4:1-3 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/jas.4.1-3.TPT
Usually it’s pretty plain what motivates a toddler. “Mine!” Then the tug of war begins. “No!” Followed by stamping feet and hot tears. “Stop!” Throwing or hitting often ensues. Even if you’re only slightly paying attention, you’ll figure out what the fuss is all about pretty quickly. Whether to intervene or allow natural consequences to occur depends largely on measuring multiple outcomes and deciding what’s best in the moment. James is not addressing toddlers’ childish behavior here. His Spirit inspired writing chides adult believers who want to have their cake and eat it too.
“You have become spiritual adulterers who are having an affair, an unholy relationship with the world.
Don’t you know that flirting with the world’s values places you at odds with God?
Whoever chooses to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy!
Does the Scripture mean nothing to you that says, “The Spirit that God breathed into our hearts is a jealous Lover who intensely desires to have more and more of us”?
Move your heart closer and closer to God, and he will come even closer to you.
But make sure you cleanse your life, you sinners, and keep your heart pure and stop doubting.
Feel the pain of your sin, be sorrowful and weep!
Let your joking around be turned into mourning and your joy into deep humiliation.”
James 4:4-5, 8-9 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/jas.4.4-9.TPT
“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”
Romans 3:23 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/rom.3.23.NLT
We struggle with the concept of sin now more than ever. The word has become taboo. We are slowly forgetting the language of God because we have neglected the Word of God. The Bible is much more than an ancient document. It is eternal truth and it is life. It is alive and active. It is the one book in all of history that is truly interactive. Jesus is still teaching us His Word by His Spirit. God still speaks but we don’t always want to hear what He’s saying. Like a toddler with selective hearing, we prefer to pick and choose, appropriating God’s Word where we will and ignoring the rest.
I grew up on choose your own ending paperbacks. These adventure or mystery stories began the same but at several intense moments in the storyline, the text prompted you to choose. Would the main character do this or that? Depending on your choice, you’d be directed to a new page where the story continued. Not content with one ending? Start again and choose differently. It was like buying four or five books for the price of one, the analog predecessor to first person video games with multiple lives. This is fiction at its finest and I salute the authors for their talent for weaving suspense into every page, but we don’t want suspense. We want guarantees. We crave predictability, but the only guarantee we get is God with us and He is more than enough.
“God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
For we live by believing and not by seeing.
So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him.
For we must all stand before Christ to be judged.
We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.
Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others.
God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too.
Either way, Christ’s love controls (compels) us.
Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.
He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves.
Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view.
At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view.
How differently we know him now!
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person.
The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ.
And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.
For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.
And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.
So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us.
We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!””
2 Corinthians 5:5-7, 9-11, 14-20 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2co.5.5-10.NLT
My view of God dictates how I perceive others like myself who are created in His image. If my identity is rooted in the One who loved the world so much that He gave His only Son to reconcile souls to Himself, not holding our sin against us but taking the penalty on Himself, my eyes are opened to the truth that His love is extended to every person on earth. I will never meet another person God does not love. I am also keenly aware that His judgement and wrath remain on all who reject Him and things are not always as they seem.
“One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat.
When a certain immoral woman from that city heard he was eating there, she brought a beautiful alabaster jar filled with expensive perfume.
Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping.
Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair.
Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She’s a sinner!”
Then Jesus answered his thoughts.
“Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”
“Go ahead, Teacher,” Simon replied.
Then Jesus told him this story:
“A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other.
But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, canceling their debts.
Who do you suppose loved him more after that?”
Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”
“That’s right,” Jesus said.
Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look at this woman kneeling here.
When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but from the time I first came in, she has not stopped kissing my feet.
You neglected the courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has anointed my feet with rare perfume.
I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love.
But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”
Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”
The men at the table said among themselves, “Who is this man, that he goes around forgiving sins?”
And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.””
Luke 7:36-50 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.7.50.NLT
Jesus was adamant that He did not come to judge the world but to save it. (John 3:17) He forgives sin. He is the One who reconciles people to God. Everyone at the table with Jesus, Simon included, needed Jesus equally. The woman, though her sins were many as Jesus acknowledged, needed forgiveness no more and no less than Simon. She recognized what Simon did not, maybe because he was too busy being offended by her presence.
Jesus carried the sin of the world on the cross. He paid the ultimate price so that every soul may be saved, but he also recognized that not all will be saved. It is not God’s will that any should perish, but being created in God’s image means all are free to choose but we must also accept the consequences of our own choices.
“Jesus replied, “You will have the light shining with you for only a little while longer.
While you still have me, walk in the light, so that the darkness doesn’t overtake you.
For when you walk in the dark you have no idea where you’re going.
So believe and cling to the light while I am with you, so that you will become children of light.”
Jesus shouted out passionately, “To believe in me is to also believe in God who sent me.
For when you look at me you are seeing the One who sent me.
I have come as a light to shine in this dark world so that all who trust in me will no longer wander in darkness.
If you hear my words and refuse to follow them, I do not judge you.
For I have not come to judge you but to save you.
If you reject me and refuse to follow my words, you already have a judge.
The message of truth I have given you will rise up to judge you at the Day of Judgment.
For I’m not speaking as someone who is self-appointed, but I speak by the authority of the Father himself who sent me, and who instructed me what to say.
And I know that the Father’s commands result in eternal life, and that’s why I speak the very words I’ve heard him speak.”
John 12:35-36, 44-50 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/jhn.12.35-50.TPT
“We’re not keeping this quiet, not on your life.
Just like the psalmist who wrote, “I believed it, so I said it,” we say what we believe.
And what we believe is that the One who raised up the Master Jesus will just as certainly raise us up with you, alive.
Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise!”
2 Corinthians 4:13-15 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/2co.4.13-15.MSG
A Fitting Reply 