Any Tears?

 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.  I John 2:6...."Have you any tears for your unlikeness to Jesus?" A.W. Tozer

If you call yourself a follower of Christ, if I do, how deeply does the question posed by Tozer penetrate your heart and spirit? How much of who we truly are, "squirms" in the light of that question? More, when He brings into the light how many areas of our life and behavior fall so short of our "walking in the manner as He walked," how grieved are we over what we see? Are there any tears?

Our flesh has an amazing capacity for downplaying its sin. We consign unChristlike behavior as just part of our personality, or we blame the circumstances and events taking place around us. I have heard marital partners blame each other for how badly they behave towards their mates. Employees blame their work atmosphere or the people they work under or with. In one way or another, we find a way to get around the command to walk as He did.....in all places. We also convince ourselves that He's very understanding about it as well. He realizes how tough our lives are and we feel He doesn't really expect Christ likeness of us. He knows we'll fall short and so we believe it's not nearly that much of an issue. We get comfortable with our falling short and comfortable in the behaviors that make it so. We think He has too.....and we are badly deceived as we do.

Back in the early part of the 2000's, some really hard places entered into my life and ministry. Our church had suffered some serious financial setbacks, so much so that I needed to take a job outside the church. I now had the balance act of tending to a full time outside job and trying to give the same full time attention to my congregation and ministry. I didn't do very well at it. The outside pressures grew intensely. Added to it was that I was now working among a diverse and often difficult group of people. The usual kind of "politics" was constantly going on, and on top of it, I dealt with a steady flow of often difficult or outright rude customers. These and other factors made for an unpleasant experience that was to last a little more than two years. In that time, it shames me to admit to all the times I failed Him in my witness, in how I responded to all of it. I also found many ways to justify it all, to shrug it off, and to be convinced that the Lord understood what a difficult place this was for me. And I was deceived in all of it. In His mercy, He brought me through, shortening the time of my "captivity," but from the perspective of time passing, my heart continues to grieve over how poorly I so often represented Him. My eyes and attention were far too often upon what was happening around me and far too little not upon Him. When that happens, there can be no other result than what I was experiencing. How much of what you're walking through resembles that part of your own journey?

 I'm not speaking of living under condemnation. He offers and gives His forgiveness, but, where are our tears? Tears over how we've lived and how we live today? Where do we grieve His Holy Spirit, and where do we grieve His heart? Have we had any tears? ? Like I said, hard questions. Do we answer them.....or hide from them?

Blessings,
Pastor O