Don't Look Down!!!

"But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death." Romans 7:8-10

Why do people say, "Don't look down" from a height? According to one answer, "The effect of looking down is to tilt your head. Since your balance is based on the fluid in your ears, tilting your head shifts your balance and may cause you to lose it and fall. This is where the feeling of vertigo comes from when you look down along with focusing on both near and far at the same time (the precipice or beam and the ground below)." This sounds like a fancy way of saying not to look down from a height because you will focus on how high you are, get scared, lose your balance, and risk falling. As a wise man once said, "I am not afraid of heights. I am afraid of falling." Most people, whether they are afraid of heights or not, usually steer clear of putting themselves in those situations. The average person avoids walking along the edge of a cliff, on top of a roof, or balancing across a narrow bridge. When it comes to religion, in general, and Christianity, specifically, there is the opposite idea from this "don't look down" mentality applied to the way adherents of these religions are told to live their lives. All of them incorporate some form of the idea that behavior modification is what pleases whatever god it is you are trying to please. Whether it is the Five Pillars of Islam, the Mosaic Law from Judaism (and much of Christianity), the various rules, tenets, codes, sacraments, and traditions of Catholicism and Protestantism or the myriad ways of living from other belief systems, both religious and secular alike, they all focus on controlling a person's behavior. Yet, nearly all of them have ways by which their adherents can obtain a level of forgiveness for their failures at being completely obedient to the lifestyles they have sworn to uphold. The reason that people fail at living the way they believe their god has told them to live is that all these belief systems are telling people to "look down." In other words, people are being taught to overcome their sins by focusing on cleaning up their flesh. When you focus on your flesh, the only thing you will discover is that it only gets worse. Whatever you focus on grows. And when you focus on sin you will get more of it.

In Romans 7, the Apostle Paul gives one of the most honest accounts of what a life of attempted obedience and repentance to laws will result in. God gave the people of Israel the Law. He did this for many reasons. One of those reasons was to preserve the people so He could enact His plan of salvation, Jesus Christ, through them. The law did this by separating the Jews from the people around them through the commandments provided through it. However, one reason God gave the law that often goes unnoticed is to show people their sinfulness, so they would seek God's grace and mercy through faith in Jesus Christ. God also can use the religious systems of these other beliefs to His advantage as well because members of these other religions aren't living up to their standards either. However, Paul would admit the law stirred up sin within him to the point that he recognized his spiritual death. You see, the people of Israel thought they were already spiritually alive to God because He gave them His law. Remember when Jesus said, "You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life (John 5:39-40)." Jesus alluded to this belief that the Jews had that because God gave them the law and the scriptures, they had life. But, they did not have life. This is what Paul referenced when he said that sin "sprang to life" when the commandment was read. His example was that he didn't know what coveting was apart from the law telling him not to covet (the tenth commandment). But, through the law, all he noticed was opportunity after opportunity to covet. The law didn't diminish sin in his life. It increased it. That is why in 1 Corinthians 15:56 Paul said, "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law." The law caused him to realize he was not spiritually alive to God, but rather dead to Him because the law was stirring up the sin in his life. His religious pride was being challenged and God was humbling him. This is what happens when you try to live your life by outward commands designed to modify your behavior rather than being motivated to change from within through being given a new heart as a result of an encounter with Jesus Christ. When you are focusing on Jesus Christ, you are not motivated to "look down" at yourself, your flesh, and your sins. Rather, you are focusing on Jesus Christ, the life of God in you, the forgiveness of sins, and a changed heart. Do not look down and walk on the cliff's edge, the rooftop, or the narrow bridge of religion. Instead, let us look up and "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author, and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2)."