hezekiah 17:3

Used to be that I’d have a thought that I’d think was a great realization, an Aha moment, and I’d begin to think it through, and come to realize that it directly contradicted another great Aha realization that I might have had earlier. I’d then dwell on both to try and decide which of my realizations was reality. I no longer think that there is always an either/or. I guess some people calls these discrepancies, “the exception that proves the rule.” Often, these contradicting realizations simply reveal ironic discrepancies in the consistency of our lives. We have an uncanny ability to compartmentalize, down-play our failures, seek only encouragement in our failures rather than help not to fail. We have separate values and morality to apply to most compartmentalized areas of our lives.
Christians have become notorious for this. We can have exactly the same thoughts, do exactly the same things, and feel exactly the same way as the folks whom we lambaste with hell-fire and brimstone, but consider ourselves better, removed, and above them because we go to church, or have a fish on our cars, or wear a t-shirt with a bible verse printed on it.
Truth is though, thinking we are better doesn’t really make us any happier, in fact we find ourselves less-than-happy a great deal of the time. Since we are better, it surely must be external circumstances that are causing our non-happiness. So we begin to look for ways to gain control over our circumstances. We look to conquer our finances, to learn to control our children better, and learn to appreciate others more, etc. Where better to go for this help than to the bible? So we go to the scripture for encouragement, looking to feel better about ourselves. We turn to Hezekiah 17:3.
Seems like at some point, surely Christians went to the Scriptures to be changed, transformed, renewed. At what point did we begin to use them as a “learning to love yourself” book? We want the bible to encourage us in all our junk. But the Bible wants to show us all our junk so that we can be rid of it.
The Aha irony moment came when I began to think about this attitude and measure it against our distorted, contorted, damning understanding of the Gospel. Here is a message of mercy and grace and promise and hope and deliverance. We have turned it into, “turn or burn,” and, “get right or get left.” I saw a pic of a church marquis this Christmas that read, “Think you might go to hell? Don’t come to church this Christmas and know for sure.” I was thinking that “gospel” means, “good news”. I was thinking it was good news, because it was different than the bad news, since it provided a provision for a legal code of conduct that I can’t possibly keep. So why do we present the law, call it the gospel and seek encouragement for remaining wretched.