the big picture

Romans 2:4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?


Have you ever missed the big picture because you were so busied by details? My biggest "miss the big picture moment" was the first two years of my oldest son Cal's life. I had just started a business, we were in debt, and life seemed like a blur. I knew that I needed to provide for Cal, change some diapers and give Evie a break when she asked for one, and I did those things(begrudgingly at times). What I missed was the beauty of being a dad. How great is it that someone has to trust totally in me and Evie to survive. I now see that my busyness and future dreams of success clouded the big picture of being Cal's father: love Him, enjoy Him and prepare Him for a relationship with Jesus by modeling how good it is to trust and obey a loving father. I am thankful that God was patient with me, and showed me the error of my ways as a father. Cal is a great kid who any father would be proud to have. (Cal when you get old enough to read and understand this, give your mom a hug for those first years when I was not there and she was).

There are many times when we all can miss the big picture because we are too busy, ignorant or just not interested. Romans 2:4 above lays down a big picture painted by God that seems to be not only missed but dismissed. His grace and patience with us in our sin has one intention: Get us to repent, turn form sin and follow Christ. When we repent, we agree with God that we are sinners and we are saying in effect "God we turn from sin towards you and lovingly submit to your authority, because we acknowledge that we are evil and uncapable of good, so we need you to shape us into the image of Christ". Some where that has been missed. Millions of Americans believe that Jesus saves them from Hell after death becasue they did a certain act, yet rebel against God, His word and refuse to submit to His authority.

It is true that we will never be perfectly sinless....but if we are Christ followers we will learn to hate sin as God has defined it, and put our flesh and its desires to death (Romans 8:13) as we follow the one who was sinless. The spirit convicts us away from sin and moves us towards Christ. To me that seems really simple. God hates sin and has defined it clearly. Jesus Christ was sent to give us a chance to be regenerated to new life in which he pays for our sins and His intercession and the Holy Spirit's ministry works to seperate us from our sins.

If it is that simple, then the big picture has been clearly missed when we have churches that declare clear sinful acts "ok". Be careful of following anyone who tells you that sin is ok and to ignore what God has to say. It is your life and your soul, but it is God's Big Picture and he has spoken His will in the Bible. Go read it for yourself.