In book ten (specifically chapters twenty-seven through forty-three) of Confessions, Bishop Augustine reveals a connection to the first nine books. Although Augustine speaks frequently of hope, towards to the future, he also recollects the memory of sin and struggle between options. Thirteen years have now passed since the death of his mother, Monica, which he recorded in book nine. Now as Bishop of the Catholic Church in North Africa, Augustine shepherds and teaches the community whom he is writing. Book ten is a transition, but as Carl Vaught writes, “Augustine has still not reached the end of his journey.”[1]

The Bishop recollects willfulness and the dissipation into many things. His remorse is that he not only missed out on being filled with God, and God filling him, but that he sought finite things that lead to nothingness. Augustine’s hope is turned to the one and only true mediator, who is both man and God, Jesus Christ. Though Augustine received Christ’s forgiveness in book eight, Augustine looks to the future in hope to be filled with him, healed by him, and continually praise him.

Augustine begins chapter twenty-seven, “Too late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved you! Behold, you were within me, while I was outside: it was there that I sought you, and a deformed creature, rushed headlong upon these things of beauty which you have made. They kept me far from you, those fair things which, if they were not in you, would not exist at all. ”[2] 

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God is not mad at you. If you are a believer, it is actually impossible for God to be mad at you. For God to hold anger towards you would mean that you are still under wrath. Simply put, if God could be mad or hold any form of condemnation towards believers, covered by the blood of Jesus, then Jesus failed on the cross.

            When I tell Christians this, they often balk. Few believers know how to live their lives in the freedom of Christ-completed work. Instead these believers live lives in a three-step dance of sin, guilt and confession; the second step being unnecessary as guilt is a useless commodity for believers in the kingdom of God.

            This process of sin, guilt and confession is what causes some Christians to hate sin for the wrong reason. Think about it. Why do you hate sin? If you are like me in the past, you've hated sin more for the way it made you feel or the results of your sin then hating sin itself. Yes, we need to hate the consequences of sin, but the primary reason for hating sin is because sin is everything God is not and when we sin we break God’s heart. For God, lack of condemnation towards you and a broken heart can co-exist.

            Thus, the amount you hate sin is tied into how much you experience love for and from God. When you love God, you no longer avoid sin because of the law or fear. Instead, you avoid sin, because you want to bring pleasure to the Father. Your righteousness becomes a love language. This is why freedom from sin is found in the place you least expect it. Freedom from sin comes from focusing on your love relationship with God rather then creating a fail-safe program for sin management.

            Since the Devil knows this, he will continue to convince Christians that God is mad at them. Why? The reason is that we tend to avoid people who are angry with us. When we avoid God, we are also avoiding his love and acceptance.

            Here’s the truth, God’s not mad at you. Go in peace.

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The news coverage since the capture of Osama Bin Laden has been fascinating. And yet a number of questions remain: Did Pakistan know his whereabouts? Has the death of Osama hurt Al Qaeda or emboldened them? And yet still an important question remains that few have asked—Was Bin Laden a homicidal maniac? After all, could any normal person call for the death of over 3,000 people? He must have been insane, right?

The day after the news of his death, Bill O’Reilly twice referred to Bin Laden as a “homicidal maniac” during the opening comments of his show on Fox News. The first definition of maniac is, “an insane person, especially one who suffers from mania.” Whether or not O’Reilly meant for maniac to be understood in this way, others have said Bin Laden is “mentally imbalanced,” “insane,” and “wired wrong."

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Okay, I admit it, I was pretty happy that the centerpiece of the current reign of terror was ushered into the netherworld. That it was at the hands of a Navy Seal, a well-placed missile or by falling down the stairs would not have made a whole lot of difference to me. I am just relieved to know that there is one less misguided mind plotting horrific acts of murder.

That he was eliminated does not trouble me a whole lot. Like C.S. Lewis, I subscribe to the principle of “just desserts”.

And I know that this confession will have a lot of my tenderhearted friends in the blogesphere howling in disbelief and digging around for scriptures to quote. “How can you possibly match Christ’s demand that we “love our enemies” with the action of unloading lead into their skull?” they shall ask.

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Discovering who we are inevitably leads us to discovering the reality that we're not who we desire to be - at least in ways.  Shame and guilt over past sin or current struggles can paralyze us....completely.  We feel separated from God, the people of God and the things of God.

We have to understand, though, that shame creeps in because we wrongly identify ourselves in sinful actions/tendency/behavior.  At it's core this misplacement of our identity is because we view ourselves as bodies that have a soul versus a soul that has a body.  

It may seem like a matter of semantics, but it's not at all.  It's an entirely different identity.  If we view ourselves as a body that continues to sin and do what we ought not - cf. Romans 7:18 - we inevitably end with feelings of shame and guilt.  However, if we view ourselves biblically and through Christ as a soul that has been made new, our identity is beyond our fleshly limitations and actions.  This is important to understand because our identity, then, is not found in sin, but instead in who God has made us to be spiritually (cf. Ephesians 1:3-14).

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Like the rest of the world, I was captivated by the impressive rescue of the Chilean miners trapped thousands of feet below the earth's surface for 69 days. In a world where a lot of these kinds of things often turn out badly, it was heartwarming to see a rescue plan that worked.

There are lots of angles on a story like this. The resiliance of the miners and their belief that they would be rescued. The resolve of the mining company and the Chilean government to get every man out alive. The unabashed joy of the rescuers and the families as the miners emerged on the surface one by one. All of these mini-dramas within the larger story made for great theater.

As I watched the drama unfold, I was happy for the miners, but I couldn't help but think about sin. Not the sin of the miners or anyone else involved in the story, but a metaphor for sin and how God has put together a rescue plan for each one of us.

If you want to see what sin looks like in a laboratory—a gorgeous, depressing, cinematic laboratory—then study AMC’s television series Mad Men. Its characters, although trapped in a very specific time and place in American history, reveal the universal way that human vice separates mankind from the divine. The show’s creators expose the massive divide between beauty and ugliness, a spiritual paradox where appearances deceive us on every level.

I find it hard to recommend Mad Men to most people, especially Christians. Its sexual scenes are uncomfortable; its vices are glamorous. I don’t let my children watch it. I watch the characters sin and then sin again with awkward fascination. I am both appalled by the protagonist and instructed by his self-deception. My parents, who met and married in New York City in 1960 and subsequently lived in real life with every cup, necktie, and piece of furniture on the set, would no doubt find the cultural references and costuming to be pitch-perfect. Yet I’m certain they would squirm at the debauchery behind the proper offices of Sterling Cooper. I have yet to recommend it to them.

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-Ism's in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism....

My son was born on the very day that George W. Bush decided it was prudent to invade Iraq. I remember being distraught at the lack of evidence revealing weapons of mass destruction and I remember feeling a bit, well, cynical that my son would know anything but a violent world. Who is going to teach him peace? That was one of my journal entry questions that night. At the end of the day, his mother and I would have to teach him peace, but one day he will need to learn that global peace is difficult and my prayer is that he won't become jaded or cynical in his quest to simply live out his faith in a fractured world. Let's be honest, cynicism can be a drug at times. It feels good for a while, but after all is said and done, it's a let down. 

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This past weekend was my wife’s birthday.  Her favorite kind of birthday party is one in which she hosts her friends, so that’s what we did on Saturday.  We held the party at my brother’s house, and Anna cooked her amazing enchiladas, and many of our friends, mostly married couples, came over to celebrate.

Christian, married couples play games; I think that’s part of being married.  I think these games must be social lubricant for a bunch of couples that don’t go out and party anymore.  We brought Apples to Apples and Taboo, and both saw a little action.  Apples to Apples is essentially an individual game, and for Taboo, we went guys vs. girls.

Everyone had a good time, and the night ended well, with my brother emerging as the victor in A2A and the girls triumphing in Taboo.  But it was interesting to notice the hearts on display throughout the night:  Lying, cheating, accusing, over-competitiveness, self-justifying, holding grudges, incredulity, boasting.  And that was just me.  The list makes it sounds much worse than it seemed.  Most of these were masked in laughter or sarcasm and seemed harmless at the time.

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