“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.”
~ Isaiah 1:18
Holiness is a gift,
Righteousness an inheritance.
Why should He, from His pearled throne
Stoop down to my place in the dust?
Where I sit with the rest alone,
Where my flesh rots and metal rusts,
I yearn for His presence,
Yet I shy from His duties.
I wish to cast off my burdens,
as I add daily to my shackles.
I do what I ought not,
And do not what I ought.
I fear to rest or relax,
For when my guard is laxed —
Sins come in hordes,
Till all left is to mourn.
I am hateful to myself,
A stranger in my own skin.
A sojourner in a cursed body,
A wretched soul in a blameless corpse.
I cannot shoulder the blame,
to a body which cannot think.
I am responsible, I alone;
But my sins too great to atone.
Christ is all I have, pauperish me;
Can you not see it, that He came for thee?
Too great a miracle, sayest thou?
Otherwise to save thyself how?
Canst thou not see it?
The miracle stands before you.
God’s grace is unearned,
God’s grace is infinite,
God’s grace knows no limits of man.
You are forgiven by His blood!
It is not your power not to sin, but His!
Let His will flow through your veins!
To be ever more sin’s eternal bane!
Purge me of hunger
Not for bread
But for flesh
It gnaws turns
tears the screws
bites ever tighter
twists and tighter still
I want it gone!
No more the flesh
Nevermore as ash
It fades the cursed parasite
throbs and pulses and swells
like an abscess of desire
The hunger grows, devours
engorged upon itself till
it bursts and drains its human pus
into the mouth of Hell.
To Sheol it beckons me
a king and his son battled this beast and came to dun;
his name was David, son of Jesse
and his son was Solomon, Bathsheba’s son.
But they cast themselves upon Your mercy
They were spared the fire, though not the pain
and ascended they on high to rest
in Your Maker’s Hands.
Make it tremble, make it burn
Reduce it to ash
Put the flesh to the sword
and from the Consumptor’s gory pyre
arise the spirit saved to light.
And here he sat, comprehending his own villainy, the muck and murk of human myopia and his fleshly urges to short-lived pleasures, all but castrating himself over his indescribable badness, refusing to qualify the foulness of his sin against such terrors as the kings of history and prehistory when suddenly the page spoke and said:
“Then confess if you’re so guilty. But keeping it all to yourself like this, obviously you don’t feel that bad about it.”
“Evil exists to be forgotten. When all men are dead, the good men will have gone on and left the evil ones behind in the place of no names.”
And while you might disagree, someone infinitely more important than you has decided you’re an alright sort of bloke. Without opening the door on unbridled hedonism, know that it really doesn’t matter.”
“You recognize the wrongness of it. Disassemble the transgression, examine and multiply its parts. Realize the brute pleasures come of someone else’s expense, virtual or real. And thereby brand it as the valueless thing that it is.”
“Move on. Giving up is only proving one thing.”
You can be a good Christian.
He’s already forgiven you.
So forgive yourself.
From the City on a Hill 