Out of the dark

How do you deal with forgiveness? What do we do with the struggle against sin in our lives? Who do you think you are – are you holier than I?

These and many other questions are part and parcel of our conversations and interactions – not only in our work, but in our daily lives with one another as well. Paul struggled with his past, knowing that he had condoned murder – even though he had not considered it such at the time. Peter knew what he had done there by the fire, cursing his accent from Galilee. We all know the feeling: we were in a dark place, a very dark place.

But that is the operative word – if we are now in Christ. We WERE in a very dark place. A place of shame. And when satan reminds us of it – either in temptation or in accusing us through the mouth of someone who has come to know of our past – we can only admit that it is true. We were truly like that. We really did do that. And yet, that is not the end of the story.

It is truly true that Jesus’ death on a cross, in shame and pain, paid my debt to righteousness. “God made him who had no sin to be sin so that we might become his righteousness” (a favorite song and of course also 2 Corinthians 5:21). You may have lived in the darkest depths of slavery (yes, that is really what it is), but He brought you out and placed you in His glorious kingdom of light.

Imagine what the Israelites felt when they came through the Red Sea on dry land and saw the waters crash back down on the army that had been breathing with heated breath down their necks. They had almost been caught again, captured and carried back to the darkness. But now, now they look back over the waves at that far away place, that place of darkness – as they stand in the light, as they stand in freedom.

I am NOT in darkness. I am NEW. And I will live as this risen creation, awoken to new possibilities and new strengths in the might of the Almighty God, my loving Father. You, too, can walk away from darkness. Don’t listen to the repeating refrain of shame that satan shouts into your ear. Simply admit the truth: Yes, I WAS in darkness. And admit the Truth: but ‘I have been crucified in Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me!’ (another song – and Galatians 2:20).

And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11