A Christian’s Iniquity Part One

"Behold, the LORD'S hand is not so short that it cannot save; nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken falsehood, your tongue mutters wickedness.” -  Isaiah 59:1-3

What an echo: the ringing of the words in the heart of “the abandoned”. Every Sunday and throughout the week we hear over and over, “God will never leave you. You are not abandoned”. Yet in our hearts is an echo of loss. If God is so strong and so powerful, where, then, is our deliverance?? Where, then, is our answer? This repetition of “no answer” creates this pervasive doubt that, in our moments of weakness, in the times when we are tired, or overwhelmed, comes rushing into all the empty, lacking spaces with crushing whispers of, “see...He HAS forgotten. Maybe others can have, but you can’t. Your faithfulness has been for nothing. You thought you were loved; you thought if you persevered it would come but...” And so it echoes over and over. You pull yourself up. You reassure yourself in the Word and you persevere knowing full well that those words will come to haunt you again, and it wears you down. Your faithful, struggling heart is crying out, “Where are you, God?!?” So in a moment like that I come to this verse. To a tender, broken heart this feels like an assault. How can this be?

We Christians tend to want to ignore these kinds of verses. We stick to the comfort of the New Testament and want to rely exclusively on the Cross as our justification that these verses no longer apply to us: The Redeemed.

But these verses are written to us as much as they were to Israel. We may not crush the bodies of those around us, but have we shed the blood of the heart? Have our judgments and verbal assaults broken their spirits? Do we encourage and build up our brothers and sisters in Christ, and even those who have yet to come to the Savior, or are we spending our spare time perverting their justice by the words that we speak and by selfish grasping for our own? In a time that makes immediate anonymous judgement online, are we in fact holding justice far away from those who desperately need it?

There are so many ways that our iniquities accumulate: When we choose a television/internet show that “gently” assaults what is right, and boasts in perversity; When we would rather spend our time pursuing self-interest, or comfort, instead of spending time in prayer, petition and in the Word of God. Our lives have become so comfort seeking that we have forgotten to seek the Maker of our hearts. We have become accustomed to seeing our lives as the pursuit of pleasure instead of a means to serve the King of Kings. Every time we see someone who cuts us off as an assault on our rights instead of a moment highlighting someone who needs a face-to-face meeting with the very God. If that moment drives us to cursing instead of prayer of petition for that driver's salvation, we have perverted justice. 

We want to hang the weight of justice on the big momentous decisions, but God cares about all the little decisions just as much. These little decisions in fact comprise a whole life. These are the moments we can dedicate to the will and purpose of God, or the moments we do the work of the “Accuser of the Brethren”. Jesus defined that kind of character this way,

"You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies." John 8:44

It is not that such individual decisions cause us to lose our salvation standing before God, but about whose nature is being produced in us. We are in the process of being transformed into the image of God (2 Corinthians 3:18). So what nature are we fostering with us?

(Next article continues in Isaiah 59:9. How do we rate as one of those who are stumbling in the dark at noon as if we deserve such penitence? If we are covered by the blood of Christ, are not we covered despite our poor behaviour?? )