The Tipping Point

I walked out to my '96 Tacoma in the driveway last week, and had two thoughts:
1. "My car is dirty. Like, 'just got back from Burning Man' dirty."
2. "That tree only has one leaf left. Tomorrow, that tree will be different than today."
(see above picture I snapped)

Last night, Pastor Harvey spoke on the basics of idolatry, and how we as Christians have a means of escaping the clutches of idols in our lives. He defined an idol as anything the we trust, love, or obey. We're called to actively throw down our idols and run the race that God has marked out for us.

Over the past few years, I've watched as the occasional church folks have quit their race...some have given up on God and others have given up on His people. Some have done both. A common thread I see is frustration with the pace of renewal. Many aren't getting the results they thought they would, or in some cases, what people told them they would.

Salvation is typically addressed in three different ways in Scripture:
1. A starting point or decision to acknowledge Jesus as King
2. The ongoing process of becoming more like your King, what we call sanctification.
3. Our King Jesus' return and the end of all that is not as "it ought to be".

It has been said that sanctification is a crawl. That instead of the 100M dash, it's more like a marathon you run over the course of all of your days. There are seasons of rest and seasons of hardship. You are either gaining ground or losing it.

With things like bankruptcy, cancer, and divorce, it's easy to lose perspective on our trajectory. It's easy to not feel the presence of our King. It's easy to slip into discouragement or even frustration about our sin and the remaining brokenness in us.

Our identity is changed the moment we receive Christ. The power and penalty of sin has been dealt with. The presence of sin is here, but time is running out. The leaves are indeed falling, and soon...only one will remain. Then, it too will fall and all things will be made new. Even the presence of sin will be gone forever.

I can't help but long for the day the last leaf falls. We will then see how altogether different we really are.

Come Jesus.

DZ