Morning by morning, new mercies I see. . .

While I wouldn't consider myself out of my funk yet, I do have to admit that today is a new day and my mood is much better. The sun is shining. The weather is beautiful. I have a free day to do whatever I want. It's not too bad at all.

A lot of that might be due to the fact that last night ended up being a lot better than the day had started out. I was bored, so I figured I would go through my list of friends to see who I could call, since Erin was out of town for the weekend and she's usually the one I hang out with all weekend. Brandon was taking people out from work until about 9:30. Tim and Amy were shopping. I knew Brandon wouldn't like me to call Diana and hang out. Hannah had been at Starbucks when I last talked to her, so I figured another cup of coffee probably wouldn't be in the cards. So, I called my friend Becky, who I hadn't talked to in awhile except for the normal pleasantries at church.

One of the (few) wonderful things about being single is the fact that you can have good friends of the opposite sex. When you're part of a couple, you give up the right to really hang out just with someone of the opposite sex, which is something I actually dread. Sometimes my best conversations have been with females. And last night was one of the more refreshing times I've had. We just talked about religion and church and the struggles we had in life, with being single, with the people we'd like to end up with but know it's probably not in the cards. When you can vent that frustration, it's really the most liberating thing in the world, and it was just what I needed after being in such a funk all day. Then, Brandon joined us and we spent about another hour there before going back to my apartment and watching Signs, which I think is probably one of the best scary movies in years. So, it ended up being a nice evening. . .

Moving on. . .

There's a great story that Derek Webb tells on The House Show about Martin Luther. Every Sunday, he would preach about the Gospel. His congregation became irritated and frustrated about it, because they felt they were ready to move onto bigger and better and deeper things. So they came up to him and asked him, "why is it that you insist on preaching the Gospel to us week after week?"

Luther replied, "Because beloved, week after week you forget it."

I think one of the leading reasons that Christians faulter, get frustrated, and often give up is because they think of the Gospel simply as something that we tell nonbelievers. While that is an important, integral, essential part of the gospel, I think we forget the fact that we need the Gospel every day of our lives.

When we forget the gospel in our everyday life, Christianity becomes just a series of commands and rituals. It becomes behavior modification. Grace doesn't enter the picture because our minds are just focusing on not-sinning and working toward our sanctification. I'm not saying that deeds aren't important. James said that faith without deeds is dead. And I'm not saying that we don't have personal responsibility to obey God and pursue Holiness. We do. We're commanded to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling," not because works save us, but because we know what we were saved from and we know that we were called to a lifestyle of holy living.

But when we cease to think about the gospel, all Christianity becomes is works. And when we fall, we fall hard. Because we don't just sin, we wallow in our guilt. Or we try to cover up our sins by focusing on others' failures and boasting of the things we do right. I'm convinced that this is why the Church has been so tough on homosexuality. Yes, it's a sin. I agree with that. But I think the Church has made it into this horrible thing that we have to target because it takes the world's eyes off our own shortcomings and sins.

We need the Gospel every day because we fail and sin every day. We need, even after we've come to salvation, to realize that each day we are in need of a savior. We need to be willing to admit that we don't have it altogether. We're not alright. We sin. We fail. And we are in constant need of the cross. If we forget it, that's the worst thing I could ever imagine happening.

C-Dubbs