when we "mulch it"

Illustrations and analogies are helpful for me in both understanding and remembering things. I don't really care that all analogies break down, because that's not the point of them. Matt Reagan gave an illustration of the Christian life.

How to eat sunflower seeds. (from the back of my patriot's choice sunflower seeds)
"Pop one in your mouth, crack the shell with your teeth, eat the kernel inside and spit out the shell. Got it?...Now, be a Pro! Pop a handful of seeds in your mouth and store in one cheek, transfer a seed over to the other side with your tongue, crack open, eat the kernel and spit out the shell. Repeat until your mouth is empty."

"To try really hard is NOT Christianity. It's every other religion, but not Christianity."
We say, try harder. We should say, "let it go." Quit trying. It's an endless battle, that has been won. But I need to learn to accept that.

I blew it.
He did it.
Accept it.

Matt Reagan was talking about how hard it is for him to eat seeds (a specific time, pretty sure in general though). He starts out fine, but he'll get distracted and eventually and inevitably "mulch it", not separate the seed from the shell, but chomp the whole thing at once, if you've ever eaten sunflower seeds, you know what he's talking about. Once you have the debris from that one, it's hard to continue with the rest. The point is not whether we mulch it or not. Jesus already did it perfectly! (yes, I think in this illustration, it is eating sunflower seeds perfectly... oh well).

My self-righteousness is always creeping, and constantly with me. It will be for the rest of my life, and is a sin that I will constantly need to confess and then repent for the rest of my life! Daunting? honestly, yeah. BUT it shouldn't be. When I commit a sin, I nearly? always commit another sin of self-righteousness. Probably always, to varying degrees. Did Jesus die for all my sin? past? present? future? yes! yes!! Well, this is a life-long learning process. Now what do I do with that? Sin that grace may abound? May it never be!


I don't know if this is true, but I think it probably is. I'll never be more or less sinful than I am right now. I thank God that I haven't committed some sins that bear with them consequences, like murder and drugs and rape and things, BUT I have the wickedness in me to do those things. Tim Keller also mentioned in his sermon this illustration: In Silence of the Lambs, the book, not the movie.
Officer Starling asks Hannibal Lector, "What must have happened to you to make you such a twisted person?"
"Why nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences. Why, you've given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You've got everybody in moral dignity pants, nothing is ever anybody's fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I'm evil?" He nails her. He knows he makes her wonder- Am I like that? She doesn't want to admit she's not basically good.

The more we grow as Christians, the more we should realize our sinfulness. You ask Hitler if he was a bad man? He'd probably have said no. Ask the same question to Abraham Lincoln, and he probably would have responded "yes". Also, along with that, the more we grow as Christians, the more we see God's Glory. Andrew Knight gave this "Pac-man diagram" and it was so helpful for me. The point is that as we grow as Christians, we see God more clearly, and ourselves more clearly. He's greater and we're worse than we can ever imagine. That means that Jesus needs to become bigger in our lives. Paul didn't think he was good at the end of his life. He called himself the "chief of sinners". He understood his sinful inner being. And he understood how short he fell of the perfection demanded of him. And he understood that Jesus did it for him.





An accepted failure,
-Scotty