I am journaling here.

The lessons God has been teaching me and has taught me and continues to teach me are what I want to share.

So I will remember them.

It has taken me 10  years to learn how to walk in victory.

And in 10 seconds I can forget everything and do something dumb.

I don’t know if anyone is actually reading these posts.  So I am selfishly writing for me for the moment.  So I will remember what has taken me years to learn, and more than one lap around Mt. Sinai to grasp.

I have been listening to some christian contemporary music of late.  If that is all I listen to, it would not be a good thing, but I think it offers some perspective.  The CCM artists are rocking and a’rolling and do not seem to have a life free of sin and worldly pleasures.  Yet they sing to remember the grace of God and to keep having God remind them they are his child.

I am not saying they aren’t.  But I do see a lot of grace without holiness.

But on the other hand, you have the harder preaching circles that seem to go to the other extreme.  They preach against all kinds, shapes and sizes of sins to the point if you are praying to God while sitting on the toilet, then you are in sin.   They preach to remember the holiness of God and having God remind us that we are wicked flesh and possess a deceitful and wicked heart.

I am not saying we don’t.

But I do see a lot of holiness without grace.

When I was on facebook, I would take those above statements and go to town with my sword of the spirit and cut off the heads in both camps.    Camp A — you are wicked and you probably aren’t even saved!  Camp B – you are self-righteous and holier-than-thou and white-washed tombs and how will you escape the damnation of hell?

And I would be the only one right because I was in neither camp.   I thought I was miserable since I was all alone in my little camp.  On my little island.

Hmm.  Instead, I think God is showing me that I need to have both grace and holiness. I am the one this blog post is for.  I am the one who is a mess and needs to be straightened out.     Instead of me trying to fix everyone and everything wrong in today’s Christianity, I can relax a bit.  And apply the lessons to my own life and be the example others can look toward.  Holiness that doesn’t waver in today’s messed up world, but with my life anchored in Christ and my security in Him so I am not this paranoid fretting coward scared I am going to pulled off my lifeboat back into the muck and mire.

I struggle believing God accepts me with all my failures and faults and unbelief.  I beat myself up in a spiritual sense for pretty much anything.  I over ate, I over slept, I slammed the door, someone took advantage of me, I yelled at the kids.

Today I thought I was having a good morning.  I didn’t yell at the kids.  The bus was late on this icy Buffalo winter morning.   They started to run laps in the yard.   Normally I would go crazy and yell at them to knock it off.  I thought boys will be boys and let them enjoy the winter wonderland.  Until they ran onto the driveway and the older 2 crash landed on the driveway after colliding.  Because I didn’t yell at them.

So I need grace for myself.  I am accepted in the beloved.  God is for me, though it seems men all are against me.  The devil hates me and wants me in hell, but I am bought with a price.  I am not my own.  I didn’t earn God’s grace, but I need it.  God loves me as I am, as I was, and not for what I can do for him.

But I also now want to live a life of victory.  Why?  Selfishly, there is some hatred of the consequences of sin, and some embarrassment of getting caught and some motivation to not lose everything including my life.  But the promises of sin are so overwhelming at times that like Esau we are willing to trade our birthrights and everything in our lives for that matter for one morsel of sin.   Only after we bite on the bait do we see the hook and suffer the poisonous aftertaste.   Sin hides its real intent, and real consequences so sin looks wonderful and is the only thing that often seems real at the moment.   The eyes of faith need to see it for the mirage it is.

Holiness is what I long for.  Holiness is what I need.  But I also need God’s grace to be holy.  God’s grace reminds me who I am and that doesn’t make me want to ruin what God did for me.  Instead it makes me want to depart from evil.  And live for God’s glory instead of the devil’s pleasures.

It isn’t easy.  Sin never quits knocking.

Knock- knock.  Who’s there?

Yes I fell for it again.

Knock-knock.

Who’s there?

Ha, you idiot.  It’s me, sin, again, and you fell for it again.

I think I learned.  I think I won’t ever do it again.  That sin.  Yes, that one.  And at some point when I thought I wouldn’t ever see this or that sin again, it comes knocking.  And it is almost like it has been such a long time since you thought about it that you didn’t even recognize it’s secret knock.

And when you asked who’s there, it almost kicked the door down.

I am grateful I have seen my share of victories.  I have had my share of great moments, and views from the mountain.  I also get bogged down in the valley or end up stuck in the slough of despond far too much to admit.   It might not just be a full fall into sin.  It could be a half day of a bad attitude.  It could be a 6 hour pity party.  It could be wanting to quit on Valley Monday after Mountain Sunday.   It could be feeling like God has your back when you just got a Christmas bonus, but feeling like you are Job when the financial well dries up 3 days before payday.

The one lesson I think the Lord showed me on falling into sin is this.  What seemed to be triggers for sin are actually excuses.  I went street preaching and then the devil came after me and then I started writing about how the earth is not a spinning globe because the bible says the earth is immovable and everyone ridiculed me, and next thing I know, I fell back into sin for 24 hours.

It doesn’t work like that.

I jumped into sin.  And let some miserable circumstances get to me to let me listen to the knock of the devil and his whispering, “Mike, you gave your life to Jesus and look how miserable God makes serving him! You deserve a break today!”

Wrong, I deserve hell.  That is what I deserve.  I am not worthy of grace or anything else.  And anything I get in addition to salvation is a bonus.

When I believe that, I tend to not jump on any excuses.

God is good.  After thinking about this, a song was on my  heart.  This is what I started singing at work last night;

I don’t know what will happen when I wake up tomorrow, and I don’t know what will happen when I wake up next week, but I do know the one who holds the future and I know that he also is guiding my hand.

The Lord is good and his mercy endureth to all generations so I will stand up and sing and praise hallelujah because I know the Lord is good.

And I know and need to know both his grace and his holiness.