The sentence of death.

The sentence of death.  It is the tolling bell of everything you had hoped and prayed for.  It is that dark moment when your feet have been swept out from under you and there is only blackness below.  When God and friend vanish, and only the enemy stands before you, ready to swallow you.  It is when all expectant anticipation evaporates, when you have spent everything in pursuit of a goal, only to watch your efforts dissolve into nothing.

Of course, there is little question that God has deserted you: He hasn’t.  But I’ve held this sentence of death within me before, as I feel that I do now.  My whole career feels like a sham, a hoax, a waste.  I’ve poured myself into something I believed good for the sake of Christ, only to watch as it has all come crashing down.  Should I have gone after something else?  Should I have worked harder?  Less time with friends or pursuing ministry?  Well, it’s too late now.  What a waste.  What a failure.  The sentence of death is empty, dark and purposeless.  Bar nothing.

Save one.  2 Corinthians 1:9 tells me that the sentence of death is within me so that I would not trust in myself.  What then am I to trust in?  God who raises the dead.

God.  Not the God of philosophy or the God of tradition.  Not the God of unbalanced love or mercy or compassion.  Not the God of stale theological truth.

God, who breaks into the real world, into the impossible moment when even my own soul has despaired of life, and whispers to me, “You may die, but I raise the dead.”

We love thinking of life in Disney-esque categories.  At the last possible moment, the prince must, we feel, swoop in to save his beloved princess and defeat their mutual enemies, so that they can live together in unadulterated matrimony for infinity hence (or, in a well-known formula, ‘happily ever after’).

But the sentence of death is when there is no happy ending.  There is no ‘happily ever after.’  The prince has failed, the princess is dead and the credits have rolled.  The last possible moment is no longer.  The sentence of death prevails.

Now is the moment when only the one and true God can rescue.  Here is where despair rules, until we, nay, until I embrace the truth that salvation belongs to my God.

O God.  I feel the sentence of death within me.  I am so far beyond anything that I could do to ameliorate my condition.  I am hopeless, but for You.  Save me, O my God.  Hear me.  Save me.  I do not trust in myself.  This is all You.  I have the sentence of death within me.  I am hanging in the balance.  The trapdoor of the gallows has already fallen from beneath me; I am in the short free fall to the end.

But for You.

I have the sentence of death within me, but I do not trust in myself.  I trust in You, O God.

I am close to death.  In a moment, I am dead.  But You raise the dead.

Specificity

Specificity is the difference between the condemnation of the enemy and the conviction of the Spirit.  It requires little contemplation or courage to confront one’s own shortcomings in the most general terms, because generality is only a pretense for transparency.  But no life change ever resulted from a man recognizing a tendency in himself toward ‘lust’ or ‘pride’ or ‘anger.’  Rather, something distinct and substantial begins to happen only when a person chooses to repent of thinking on that woman, or deriding that brother, or condemning that colleague.  We have made no progress in our walk with Christ until we confront our sins as they are, in the particular, and not in the abstract.  Christ died not only to accomplish the removal of sin in general and as a concept, but the removal of the sins of real life, the ones with real effects, in need of real forgiveness.

Satan has no interest in bringing you face to face with the reality of your particular sins, unless he can also convince you that they have removed you beyond the reach of the grace of God.  His tactics alternate between alienation and approximation: he will use either your particular sins to drive you from the Savior or your lack of specificity to keep you from Him.  Satan will call you an angry person, but he will never point out an angry word; he will call you lazy, but will never lead you to action.

The result is that we become discouraged with our lack of progress and confused over how to change.  The enemy’s lies always involve a kernel of truth: our sins do prevent us from fellowship with the Lord, and the general can always be drawn from the particular.  But if the blood of Christ is not sufficient to cleanse even the deepest sins, then it is not adequate to eliminate any of them.  And just as scrubbing the kitchen floor does not merely consist in purchasing bleach but also in applying it to that spot by the stove, so victory over habitual sins does not consist only in the discussion of principles, but in repentance from that offense and restitution to that offended person.

The antidote is the rough and uncomfortable work of detailed honesty.  The difference between principles and repentance is the difference between morality and obedience.  And obedience is not simply the rejection of extremes or the discovery of a balance between them; it is a series of choices.  Take a moment and think back through your day (or week).  What words did you speak in anger?  When did you look at a woman with lust for her in your heart?  When did you act in selfishness instead of love?  Spend some time in Galatians 5:16-26, and allow the Spirit of God to apply the principles of His Word to the particular choices of your life.