Sunday 15 August 2010

Red or dead?

One of the great blessings of the renewed vigour for good wholesome liturgy among the reformed folk in the States (and to an extent in the UK) is that many are really thinking hard about ways to portray and communicate the different components of the Lord's day service. At my last church (where I was privileged to see some of this full-bodied liturgy in action) it was a joy to see more than just 1 John 1:9-10 being used as the confession reading. Not only was this a wonderful reminder that all Scripture was breathed out for our good, but it also helped us to see the wonder of the gospel in its varied beauty... Now if you'd like to see something of this kind of biblical reading of Scripture, consider the following godly meditation which was used before inviting the good Christian folk of CC Moscow to confession

"We want our sins to be reckoned as tiny for numerous reasons. One is the obvious self-justifying one, but we also want our sins to be small because we want God’s forgiveness to be a reasonable forgiveness. We want God to be a gentleman, the kind of being who would obviously be well-bred enough to be able to overlook our little faults and peccadilloes. But God is not a well-mannered gentleman. His forgiveness is much closer to that which would be extended by an out-of-control crazy man. Our sins are as scarlet, and God forgives them all. Our sins are crimson, and He makes them like bleached wool [...]

God does not forgive us because we were already half the distance to passable. He does not forgive us because we were all semi-okay. No, we were all not okay, and not okay is an expression that does not do justice to our condition [...]

So our sins are as scarlet and crimson. Our problem is that sin is the wrong color—blood red. And the only thing that can put such a problem right again is something else that is the same color—the blood red color of our redemption. So as we come to confess our sins, let us seek red for our red."


Isn't that brilliant?

So harden not your heart, and God to the cross seeking red or else, you'll be dead!

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