Monday's meditation

Was reading in Romans yesterday and figured out exactly where I am at in my Christian walk. Click on this link to read Romans 7:14-25 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%207:14-25;&version=31;9;49;65;
This is me. Every time I desire to "do good", there is something in my head wanting to do what I should not do. It is that constant struggle of whether to do right or wrong.

This next part can be fairly heavy reading, and may make you squirm a little also, makes me squirm a lot. Many of us can think of someone who has performed the most heinous crime ever committed (Jeffrey Dahmer, Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olson... unfortunately I could go on). These men murdered, one as many as 17 people including children. If you found out that either of these murderers had come to know Christ as saviour and Lord while serving time in prison do you rejoice or do you (even for a split second) think that person does not deserve to be in heaven after what they did? I will get back to that question later on.


Something to think about for awhile while I tell another story. When I was a little kid ( a few years older than the one you see in the picture on this page, I still remember so vividly going into the Safeway and stealing a pack of cigarettes and then running across the street to the Texaco gas station and stealing a coke from the machine outside, and then going down under the bridge by the river and lighting up and drinking my coke. Hard to believe eh, I mean wow they had cigarettes when I was a kid, and Coke too ;) A friend I hung out with at that time would grow up and I would hear stories of how he went to prison for killing someone when he was in his early 20's. Was his killing someone worse than my stealing something. There was a time I would answer that without hesitating and say "Heck yeah". But then when you think of doing something wrong or sin as we call it in Christian circles do we have a hierarchy of sin...those more acceptable than others... I stole something worth about $1.00...someone else robs the bank and gets thousands of dollars...and yet someone else murders 17 people...whose sin here is the worst? How does God see sin? My understanding is (and feel free to correct me here). God sees sin as sin...there is no "good" sin. Maybe we have downplayed what we have done in order to make ourselves look better than we actually are. When we sin, is God disappointed with us. I believe he is. When we come to him confessing our sin, is he pleased with us. I believe he is...and he forgives us our sin...no matter what we have done. Guess I kinda answered my earlier question that I said i would get back to. Even though my and maybe your sense of justice wants people like Olson/Dahmer/Bernardo etc to be punished, even into eternity...God's love (even for them) stretches far beyond what we can ever imagine. Now before I decide to take licence with God's grace and go and sin as I please, I need to go and read Romans 6:1-10 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%206:1-10;&version=31;9;49;65;
God's grace be with us today, because we are sure gonna need it.