Nails

Permit me a momentary cliché as I share with you lyric that struck a cord with me this evening. As the words were sung, “You bore so much shame to love me,” I was convicted. The context of the song Nails is placed around the crucifixion. This got me to thinking about how willing I would be to lay my life down for another. These thoughts are connected please bear with me.
I would imagine it an easy thing to lay one’s life down for someone whom you felt was worthy. One might easily lay their life down for the President, a favorite school teacher, sibling or friend, but how many would lay their life down for a the lawless? How quickly would you lay your life down for a prostitute, a murderer or simply the man who cuts you off on the freeway? We tend to adopt this “you deserve what’s coming” attitude much too quickly.
Pursuing this train of thought further I came to self-examination of my what I will call the “burn threshold.” I use the burn threshold. The burn threshold is the limit upon which time “I” will no longer “pursue” someone’s friendship, but wait for “them” to come to “me.” I am a fairly easy going guy and I generally desire to be friends with everyone, but if a person “burns” me enough times by ignoring me, spreading rumors or things of that type, that’s it. I will no longer pursue that person in that scenario; they have reached the burn threshold. The person in question no longer deserves my time and my energy; they no longer deserve for me to try and make something work, they have crossed the line. It was this “philosophy” and examination that will connect the dots.
I tell Christ on a regular basis that I want to serve Him and I want to know Him more, yet I turn around and do these absolutely blatant sins and choose so many other gods before him, that in the jargon of my own philosophy, I have “burned” God. I have sinned against God; I have denied the God that loved me – and the kicker, the God that laid down his life for me. I would readily lay my life down for someone who I thought was worthy, but I admit I would hesitate a long time for someone whom I didn’t feel worthy. I would hesitate a long time to lay my life down for someone who “burned” me, someone who crossed the “burn threshold.” And the reason: pride. I would hesitate because my pride would not let me be shamed so much to be taken one more time by this person- and that is where the issue lies. I would not bear the shame by love or any other motivation to sacrifice for a person who has done so many personal attacks against me. And to the point; God has, is and continues to bear the shame of me sinning in the face of his ultimate sacrifice, his death on the cross - His death for a man who mocks the payment on a regular basis. This is the thought that struck me and convicted me this past Wednesday night.