Sunday, December 05, 2010

Demise of the Purple Heart

Legacy:the dream of many a legend.

Excuse my lack of eloquence, I am taking baby steps again given how long it's been since I last blogged. I will take it one step at a time.

It is innate, that every man longs to leave a legacy- some sort of thing to remember him by, something worthy of being recorded, someway to carry his life forward even after he dies.

Books, sons and daughters, companies, are some way of preserving legacy. Sometimes, legacy cannot be touched, it comes in form of heroism, villainy.

I hope I do not confuse any of you. This is a death announcement. The prevention of legacy. There will be no more purple heart after this post. This is the end, the realisation that Nevender must rise again. PH, the bitter, sour man has died and Nev shall now live.

Where am I heading?

Heard of alter ego? Laughable really. Sasha Fierce, Slim Shady etc? Well, it explains a lot about our nature. Trying to be good and bad at the same time and get away with it.

The nature of man is pretty straight forward and there need be no research concerning who we are. Men say that sometimes a man is born good and other times he is born evil. That it is not upto anyone but that that is the way one is. Is it really?

Judas Iscariot can be regarded the worst of men because he was not only greedy, his greed led to the death of a not just a good man but the God man- the messiah. Maybe he was born bad. So then, should bad men have a conscience after a lifetime of "badness"? Consider

"Then, Judas, who betrayed him, when he saw that Jesus was condemned, felt remorse, and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, "I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent blood" (Matthew 27:4)

A bad man felt remorse. In this very sense it means there was something close to good in him.

Paul explains this nature very well

Rom 7:19 For what good I desire, I do not do. But the evil I do not desire, this I do.

It is easy to do bad. Without restraint, man can do very bad all by himself. It is easy to be angry, hateful, resentful. Most of this has the foundation of selfishness, needing to please oneself before anyone else.

Purple heart is a case study. Disappointment gave rise to this (blogger)man/ supposed alter ego and the need to be defiant gave him nourishment. However, where light is, shall no darkness be.

Men use rules to try and keep their evil nature under control. It is actually the grace of God which gives us that ability- innately it is that conscience which differentiates good from evil, and externally it is the law of God presented in the Torah. Having a conscience and knowledge of God's law however does not give one the ability to do good. It only presents a choice. It is like being given a mirror. A mirror cannot change you.

Praise God then:

Rom 8:10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

But be aware:

Gal 5:17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

And take heed:

Gal 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

Rom 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

For freedom to serve God, man must die. Not physically, but spiritually. Death to me has a new meaning- it is the ultimate humility. If we can kill our flesh, we have given ourselves over completely to God- totally dependent on God. This is why my old (blogger) man is gone. Purple heart is dead. It is a realisation that one must not always think to please himself, to vent ( yes, even doing it on blogger is an issue.) as if he deserves anything. We come into this world with nothing, we go out of it with nothing, how can we say we deserve anything?

One more thing before I go, our natural man has issues I mean look what God says

Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are clearly revealed, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lustfulness,
Gal 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, fightings, jealousies, angers, rivalries, divisions, heresies,
Gal 5:21 envyings, murders, drunkennesses, revelings, and things like these; of which I tell you before, as I also said before, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

It would do you and I good to read the whole of Galatians 5 and make sense of this issue. Be blessed.

Baseline: Gal 5:24 But those belonging to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.

4 comments:

The 27th Comrade said...

Wishing you well.
I hope the focus on “mortifying the flesh” does not cloud out of sight the fact that you do not buy yourself by any means—being as you are incapable of that, anyway, as that good Romans 7 points out—but rather that “you have been bought at a great price”.

(PS. Check out Romans 7 in the latest NIV edition over here.)

Unknown said...

Thanks 27- of course, my friend for it is God who both wills and works in me for his good pleasure.

The totality of the work is His. Amen.

tumwijuke said...

Bye!

It was nice cyberknowing you.

Unknown said...

See u on the Nevonic side Tumwi.