Circle of sin

Tonight, something reminded me of a theme from Haibane Renmei:

One who recognizes their sin, has no sin. That is a riddle called the Circle of Sin. Think about it. One who recognizes their sin, has no sin. Now I ask you, are you a sinner?

Basicly, in one state, you are oblivious to your sin and let it pile up, in the other you constantly look for your sin and are paralysed by the search. Those who do not find their way out are said to be "sinbound". Jesus has come to pull us out of the circle of sin; he gives us the power to answer "Not anymore." How easily, though, we allow ourselves to slip back into the circle, sinning, then trying to figure out and correct our faults, when the only way out is to rely on His mercy to deal with sins past and His power to keep us in His will, the same as when we first found Him.

Just a man, who has found his savior

So I was reading blogs tonight, and came across one that pretty much reflected what I'm feeling now. Basicly, I've found that I'm sinking back into a WoW addiction under the guise of being in the world and relevant. Like an alcoholic playing a drinking game, I've found myself back in my old patterns of trying to keep ahead of my friends at the cost of all else. How skillfully the Deciever lures us to our weakness.

Up to this point, this blog has mostly showcased my trimuphs: pearls of wisdom set out for all to gaze upon. It's only nature to show your strength and hide your weakness; we need look no further than our house pets to know this is true. I created this blog because I had some things on my mind that I needed to tell others, but in fact on many occations I have used it to tell them to myself.

It seems that people have gotten the impression that I'm this well of wisdom. They say that I should blog more, that I should talk more. Since in my shyness I only talk when I am confident, its easy to see how that impression might come about. The truth is, for the most part, what I say is all I've got. The truth is that I'm just a man who has found his Savior. I will admit that there is something. By His love and grace, while I was still lost and confused, He poured into me much knowledge so that when I overcame my ordeal of confusion and saw the true scheme of things I would understand them more deeply. I thank Him from the bottom of my heart for this, but I don't thank Him enough.

While the confusion may be gone, the lost is not. There are days where I'm found and stand amazed at everything, then there are days when I'm lost and wondering how I got there. Most days measure someplace in between. My biggest weakness is my absolute weakness: I revel in the mountain top experiance, where everything is clear and it's impossible to get lost, but I fail to prepare myself for the valley, where it's easy to lose sight and go my own way. While I know what is true, while I know what it is that I need, still I often try to navigate on my own.

When I feel empty at the end of the day, when I realize that I'm charting my own course, I need to lay down everything and call to Him and listen for His voice, yet so often I don't.

Sins of the fathers

Reading through the books of Kings, you see that for generations, Israel is lead by evil and corrupt kings. From the end of Solomon's reign until Hezekiah's reign, not one followed God completely, most not at all. After Hezekiah came Manasseh.

Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him an has led Judah into sin with his idols. Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. . . I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down. -- 2 Kings 21:11-13

After Manasseh came Amon, who followed in Manasseh's ways. After Amon came Josiah.

[Josiah] did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in all the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left. -- 2 Kings 22:2

Then the king called together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. He went up to the temple of the Lord with the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, the priests and the prophets . . . He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant, which had been found in the temple of the Lord. The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord -- to follow the Lord and keep his commands, regulations and decrees with all his heart and all his soul . . . Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant. -- 2 Kings 23:1-3

Jehoahaz, Josiah's successor was enslaved by Egypt. Jehoiakim's reign was really the beginning of the end for Judah before being carried off to Babylon.

The Lord send Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him. He sent them to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by his servants the prophets. Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord's command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to forgive. -- 2 Kings 24:2-4

It bothers me that so close after Josiah's reign, turning the people back to God, He still turned His wrath upon Judah. The sins of Manasseh were so great that the rightness of Josiah could not put off God's wrath past the end of his reign. But then again, after each good king, Israel seemed to have no trouble slipping back into sin; could it be that all the evil kings so corrupted the people that they never truely turned back to God?

I'm not very familiar with the events following Israel's captivity and return, but I have noticed that in the New Testament, Jesus is clearing corrupt merchants out of the temple, not alters to other gods; the evils mentioned in Kings don't seem to be present in Israel at that time. Maybe captivity straightened them out. I hope to learn in weeks to come.