Forgiven!

 

We have all fallen short of the glory! When I say, “All!” I mean ALL, and when I say, “Fallen!” just look at the bruises on your ass because they’re all still there!

 

We all find it easy to acknowledge our various sins. You don’t need the Ten Commandments. They were written on your heart from before your birth. Knowing the capabilities of your fallen nature is the first part. Accepting it is another. Conviction is a grim reality where you receive your sentence that you so righteously deserve. The hardest part is accepting the pardon. As you hang your head in shame, realizing the fruit of your actions and knowing that still you have the same fallen nature that sits on your left shoulder as you justify what you did, and may do again and you lie!

 

We all try to justify and use clever words to soften the blow of the things we’ve done. Everything from, “The Devil made me do it,” to, “I wasn’t wid dem brothas,” but be sure your sins will find you out.  Never confuse justifying with justification. Justifying is where you try to lie yourself out. Justification is where Jesus truths you in!

Sin leaves a mark. A lesion, if you will. This memory is like a scar after all is healed and well. You can’t feel the pain but you can always run your finger over the scar, and you can always remember how it got there. When Paul was blinded by the truth on the Damascus Road he was healed later. But not completely. He makes mention of having to sign his epistles with large letters, and gives Doctor Luke credit for helping him. He said that the people of Ephesus would have plucked their eyes out and given them to him if they could have. 

 

Didn’t Jesus have the power to heal Paul? Of course He did. But Paul didn’t need that. When he knelt before Nero’s sword he could still see the spots and he would not deny them. They were still there. He could still run his fingers over the scar. Damascus Road really happened. Jesus was really there. 

 

At the age of three I was stricken with polio and encephalitis. My mother was praying in the chapel at Schumpert Sanatorium in Shreveport, Louisiana. I was three, and the memory is fogged by time, youth, and a swelling of the brain. A condition that would kill me as it had killed many of my classmates in 1954. A nun came in my room to check on me. No IVs. No machine going “Bing Bing Bing.” Just a nun bringing a bowl of water. 

 

She washed my face and told me that tomorrow I’d be leaving the sanitarium. I didn’t lend any credibility to her words. Even at three years old I knew I was dead. Until the next day when I was in the hallway playing with my fourteen-year-old cousin, LeRoy, pushing him in a wheelchair that was meant for me. And I walked out of the hospital that day. But, I didn’t walk out completely healed. To this day I can still see the spots in my right eye. A memorial that I was really there. It really happened. And Jesus really cured me. Me and Paul. With our spots before our eyes. 

 

Did I sin after that? You bet your bippy I did. I’ve been in Country Music since 1969. I’ve done sins you can’t even spell. Jesus checked me up in 1970 when while working in a gas station a drunk woman came in and knocked my legs off. Well only one. The other was still attached, technically. They glued my right leg back on and I kept on sinning. 

 

My promiscuous nature was kept in check by my inability to read women, but I still got around, and around, and around. I have been married on many occasions because my only pick up line was, “Will you marry me,” and they said, “Yes!”

 

And I accepted Jesus. I just couldn’t ever take Him at his word. I prayed for bigger feet so I could at least try to stomp out the fires of hell when I arrived. I do have big feet. I don’t know if that’s an answer to my prayer or I got them from my daddy. 

 

There is a spiritual journey between realizing your sins and really understanding the implications of them. And that understanding is conviction. A true, deep-seated sorrow for your actions and knowing you have no way out. You cannot undo history, and those sins leave a lesion on your soul. A lesion that you can never heal. A lesion that requires a doctor. And that doctor is Jesus. 

 

Jesus took your lesions at Golgotha. And He is the only one who can share the cure. And the medicine is free. All you have to do is understand your conviction and really accept the suspended sentence. Quit lying, hang your head and take His hand. It’s between you and Him. 

 

My partner, Vic, when reminded of his sins by those who haven’t hung their heads yet, smiles, points his finger up to heaven, and just says, “Forgiven!” Those who have faith will hear. Those who don’t never will. 

           Let us sing together hymn number 666