Did you know that a thimble holds about 1/2 a teaspoon? Did you know that there are 768 teaspoons in a gallon? Did you know there are about 187 quintillion gallons in the Pacific Ocean? So after doing the math, did you know that there are 287,523,709,535,232,000,000,000 thimbles of water in the Pacific Ocean? Did you know that for God sin is like a thimble of water compared to the Pacific Ocean? Actually that ratio is favorable for the thimble. In reality infinity compared to anything is just infinity. The thing doesn’t measure. That is what sin is for God. Think about it.
Who made the universe? Why do you think God shared that information with us? So we would know. Every time we look at the stars, every time we poke our telescope aided eyes deeper into the cosmos, we see His handiwork. Guess what? He made it for you. Yep all for you. Not only that but just so you could look at it and know how HUGE He is and He loves you. Not only that but He knows every detail about you down to hair inventory.
Who made you? God did. All the complexity of you He designed. Pick a hero or a famous person that stands out in your mind. Maybe Einstein or Da Vinci or Mozart or Edison or Billy Graham or Mother Theresa…pick one. God made them too. He made every single little bitty quark that composes their being. He breathed it all into life. He made us all and each one is not like the other.
Who made the angels? God did. In all their splendor, in all their majesty He made them. I don’t know much about the angels other than what the Bible says but they seem pretty cool, very powerful and eternal. They get to hang out with God all the time. They get sent on missions all over the Earth. They have all kinds of supernatural powers but they aren’t gods. They are amazing but still just angels. As a matter of fact there is a day coming when we judge the angels. I have no clue what that looks like but we will be over them. Even today they minister to us.
Who made satan and all the fallen angels. Yep, God did.
So who is greater God or satan? Really it is an easy question. Did you get it right? How about this one. Who is greater Jesus or satan? I know it is getting a little more tricky but not really. OK, who is greater Holy Spirit or satan? No these aren’t trick questions. I’m just checking to see that we are on the same page. Now here is the tough one. Who is greater a child of God or satan?
Here is where people start to get all hung up. We are greater than satan, period. Christ is in us and we are in Him. We are seated in Him in Heavenly places. God has placed all, yep ALL the enemy under His feet. If we are in Him and He is in us then aren’t we greater than satan? Not only that but Jesus has all power and authority over the Earth. Yes, ALL authority. And guess what He did when He left the planet proper? He gave us the same authority as His ambassadors. OK it gets better. We are priestly Kings. We get to use our authority over the enemy to help others. Come on! Aren’t you motivated now? We get to take the planet back from the enemy. We get to bring the Kingdom to Earth. Listen, we pray for that all the time. Why don’t we believe it? It is time to believe.
OK, here is the kicker. It should be really easy. Which is greater Grace or sin? This is actually a bit of a trick question. From God’s perspective sin has been forgotten. From God’s perspective Jesus has paid the price for sin. From God’s perspective all the accounts are balanced and then some. From God’s perspective we are free from SIN. From God’s perspective it is finished. So what about from our perspective? IT SHOULD BE THE SAME!!! We are born again. We are a new creation. We have a divinely resurrected spirit. Our spirit is one with the Holy Spirit. Where sin abounds Grace mega-abounds. There is no comparison. It is like a thimble compared to the Pacific Ocean. Really, how do we keep wanting to talk about something that has been completely taken care of? Why would we try to swim in a thimble when we have the Pacific Ocean? Why do we honor sin with any discussion at all?
LAW. We ate from the wrong tree. We want to control everything. We are selfish in our survival instincts. Only total reliance on God will free us from OUR nature…LAW. That is why we are born again. That is why Jesus set us free from Sin. That is why we have to believe. All of what Jesus has done and continues to do is about “saving” us, setting us free from ourselves. When we get a glimpse of that Grace, that amazing, beautiful, infinite, unbelievable, undeserved Grace we can’t be the same. Oceans and Thimbles. To keep it official I want to leave you with just a couple of verses to think about. These are all from the Expanded Bible translation.
Romans 4:15 because the law can only bring God’s ·anger [wrath]. But if there is no law, there is ·nothing to disobey [no transgression/violation; the law points out sin, but it cannot save from sin].
Romans 5:20 The law came to make sin worse [or to reveal the true extent of sin; to increase the violation/transgression]. But when sin ·grew worse [increased; multiplied], God’s grace ·increased [multiplied/abounded all the more].
Galatians 3:19 So what was the law for? It was given to show that the wrong things people do are against God’s will [added because of transgressions]. And it continued until the special descendant [seed], who had been promised, came. The law was given through angels who used Moses for a mediator to give the law to people [by the hand of a mediator/intermediary].
Galatians 3:24 In other words, the law was our guardian [child-minder; tutor; an attendant slave who watched over a child in a wealthy Greco-Roman household] leading us to [or until] Christ so that we could be made right with God [declared righteous; justified] through faith. 25 Now the way of faith [faith] has come, and we no longer live under a guardian [child-minder; tutor].
The way I see it every time we want to manage sin through rules or imply some carrot and stick principle we are turning back to the law. Without law how is it we elevate sin to such an important position? Come on. Why do we mess around with a thimble instead of swimming in the ocean? I can’t figure it out. I think Paul was having a similar issue.
2 Cor 3:7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory?
We have a new ministry of the Spirit. We are not under law. We shouldn’t have law discussions. We get to live from and in Grace. All we need to do is believe. We trust in God to supply all the understanding. We don’t even have to figure it out. He shows us the way. We get to live a life energized by His amazing power and love. We get to live Grace. Check out this verse from the Passion Translation:
Eph 6:10 Now finally, my beloved ones, be supernaturally enthused with strength through your life-union with the Lord Jesus. Stand strong with the force of His explosive power flowing in and through you. (Passion Translation)
Listen, I get it. God hates sin. He hates what it does to us. But He doesn’t hate us and He doesn’t expect us to fix the problem. He already did. So what do you want to do? Live in Grace and swim in Oceans or putz around with a tiny thimble. Every time you do it is like trying to add a thimble full of water to the ocean and expect some result. Like God will now be so pleased that you tried yet again to do something that HE DIED FOR. Want to do something? Believe. Say it over and over again…Jesus is King. He is by the way.
Yay Jesus!!!
Lance
alancetotheheart 