What would you do if God, in His perfectly loving providence, exposed your deepest, most secret and humiliating sin before everyone you know--family, friends, children, spouse, pastors, neighbors, coworkers? What if God, in His magnificent grace, took away your reputation and your good name, your job in Christian ministry, your pedestal that others put you on and that you secretly enjoy standing on? What if the Lord lets others see what only He has seen and dealt with great longsuffering over?

I'll write about my response later (which would basically involve me hiding or changing my name or something outrageous)...but I don't think these are bad questions for us to ponder for awhile. I think it helps shed light on some of our nearest and dearest idols: our reputation, pride, latent self-righteousness, and self-sufficiency to name just a few. I believe, with the faith He gave me, that the Triune God who saught me out loves me unashamedly and unconditionally.

But I really do cringe when I consider His promises that many of his sweetest blessings will come wrapped in excruciating suffering and utter humiliation. The idea of being a profoundly broken and charity-case-type guy doesn't sit well with me, but the Gospel won't allow it any other way. Part of me wishes He would display my sins...ALL of them...before the whole world. I think it would be the first time I could truly confess with Paul that I have no boast but Christ Jesus, who willingly intervened on my behalf. I think it might be the frist time I would tightly cling to Christ with white knuckles. Surely, at the very least I would better understand the depths of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit's love for me. Surely I would revel in the incomprehensible mystery of John 3:16..."For God so loved the world...".

Lord God, for your Name's sake please slay our arrogance. Give us your grace that our humiliation and affliction might expose our deep seated need for You...that it would gently lift our eyes to the You, who cares for us. Let us walk humbly before your majesty.

What if God exposes your sin and then gives you a ministry because of it?

I think the greatest sin we have is not trusting God, of believing that He is not good, and it is sin that causes us not to see the weight of that. I think of men "of the cloth" whom God has exposed, like Jimmy Swaggart, but his greatest sin was not consorting with a hooker. It is our misunderstanding of sin that created a church culture that branded that as his problem.

It was certainly embarrassing; it was sin. But it was not his biggest sin. What merits eternal damnation was his belief that God is not enough. That God is not loving. That God's word can't be trusted.

And no one mourned over that sin, to my memory. I don't remember his confession or repentance even mentioning those.

To me, it is Pharisaical to commit not to do the outward deed and leave the inside of the sepulcher unaddressed.

"To me, it is Pharisaical to commit not to do the outward deed and leave the inside of the sepulcher unaddressed."

...Yeah Jason, I agree even though I tend to respond like many others where our first course of action seems to be behavior modification (addressing the outward . Scripture exposes that kind of response for the arrogant nonsense that it really is. And I think Scripture (i.e., Christ) would send us back to the Beatitudes to consider how we are to address the "inside of the sepulcher" (even though I don't really know what 'sepulcher' means). When we consider our unbelief and our inner corrpution, we confess our spiritual poverty (Blessed are the poor in spirit); we mourn over our sinful stubbornness; long for Another's righteousness...and so on. And of course, none of this is at all possible unless the Spirit of God, Himself, warms our hearts to repentance and belief...and persuades us agian of His love for us.

AND Joel...thanks for the blog address, I love your stuff. Can i link you to my page?