Crossing Lines

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

~Colossians 3:1-4

I was thinking about lines the other day while driving down the road on the big truck with my husband. Our entire lives are dictated by lines—lines on the roads we drive, lines at the business we patronize, lines we can see and those we can’t. “Girl, you’ve crossed the line this time,” was my dad’s favorite saying. When I was younger, that always confused me because I had no idea what line he was talking about. However, as I got older, I crossed so many lines that if they were visible, the path behind me would look like some artist went crazy! 

However, for the past 30+ years, I’ve walked a relatively straight line, doing what I’m supposed to do and being the kind of woman that makes God proud. Don’t get me wrong, I still cross lines that perhaps other people don’t approve of, and I say things that tend to shock people, but I’m a plain-spoken person. I don’t mince words or say things just to make people feel better. And mostly, I do not care what people think about me; I am not in this world to please people. I am here to please God by serving others, which I sincerely try to do every single day. Do I feel as if I do that every day? Absolutely not. But I get up every morning and start over again because my hope lies within Jesus Christ, not within my own capabilities.

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.  Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all (Colossians 3:5-11).”

“In these too you once walked…” We all walk in evil ways until we come to the knowledge of who Christ is and what He can do to change our lives, and then we put off “the old self,” which is our sinful ways, and “put on the new self,” which is Christ in us. It doesn’t seem possible at times that Christ could possibly love us even in our sins and want us to be part of His heavenly Kingdom. When we know how wrong our lives are, how wrong our thinking is, how wrong our hearts are, it seems impossible that life can change into something wonderful and worthwhile.

I think about Christ on the Cross and the moment everything went dark for three hours (Mark 15:33). That was the moment Father God turned away. That was the moment Christ knew what it was like to be a sinner because every sin that could ever be committed was fully on Him. Christ, the perfect, sinless Lamb of God, knew exactly what it was like to cross every line we could ever imagine, and some we can’t. God cannot look on sin, and because His Son was covered in our filth, He looked away and darkness fell. That’s what sin is—pure darkness. It covers our hearts and minds and prevents us from seeing that which is pure light.

Imagine life as a two-lane road, with a broken white line down the middle. Anyone who’s ever driven a car knows that a solid line is one you can’t cross to pass other cars, you have to wait for the broken line. Our lives are one big line too, and we choose which lane we’re going to travel in. Sin is the solid line that keeps us in one lane but when we are broken and come to the knowledge that sin is killing us, it’s then that we can cross that line into the arms of Jesus Christ.

^“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him (Colossians 3:12-17).”

Read 2 Chronicles 6-10

© 2018 Marie McGaha