August 10: So far to go, and not the strength to get there...

Ezra 10:1-44
1 Cor 6:1-20
Ps 31:9-18
Pro 21:3

Goes to show how far I have yet to go in my relationship with our Lord. If a pastor or a priest tried to tell me God said I had to give up my wife and the children I had with her, I would struggle to obey, and likely find ways to justify those relationships and prove the pastor or the priest wrong.

And yet what is asked of the Israelites is no different than what was asked of Abraham, when God told him to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham obeyed and was blessed and, as we see from the book of Nehemiah, so too were the Israelites blessed with a revival of their relationship with God.

How did their change of heart come about? Did they one day realize, of their own accord, their sinfulness? It would seem not...for we see Ezra was fasting and praying to God in behalf of the Israelites, begging for mercy and forgiveness. I believe God answered Ezra's prayers, and changed the Israelites' hearts, so they recognized their sinfulness and desired to return to Him.

When I read the today's NT reading, from Corinthians, I am struck by how relevant, how pertinent the condemnation of sexual sin is to our society today. For isn't sexual sin, among other things, the exultation and gratification of self at the expense of the supremacy of God? Paul wrote to the Corinthians unequivocally about sexual sin because that appears to have been the hallmark manifestation of self over God in Corinth. We have many such hallmarks in our society today, and I certainly have many such hallmarks in my life. Which is why I have so far to go still in my relationship with our Lord.

I cannot overcome my sinfulness on my own. I have neither the power nor the consistency of desire to ensure I overcome temptation when it strikes. So it is best I follow Ezra's example, crying out to God in recognition of my sin and begging for His mercy, mercy that will manifest itself not just in forgiveness, but in transformation.

"Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress...my strength fails because of my affliction...
...but I trust in You, Lord...let me not be put to shame...for I have cried out to You..."

Jon Lanuza