The word “crap” was right from Satan’s own mouth when I was a kid. Now, I’m unapologetic about my use of the word “crap” even though my mom hates it. I realize in the scope of all the world, this is not a deplorable utterance, per se, but in the home where I grew up, use of this word would get you, at best, a soapy set of teeth.
Alas, I do choose to use such ungodly language as the word crap because I’ve found it to be relatively mild, yet accurate and convenient catch-all for many of life’s little… eccentricities. Paul once wrote, “…Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.” (1 Timothy 1:15) His mom probably didn’t like that he used word “crap” either. Pray for me.
Speaking of crap… God had some opinions on the matter as well. In Deuteronomy 23: 12-14, God says, “…have a place outside the camp where one may go outside. You must have a spade among your equipment [and] when you relieve yourself outside, you must dig there and turn and cover up your excrement. For the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you, and to defeat your enemies before you. Therefore, your camp must be holy…” Actual crap, Mom.
(Don’t worry, this passage is from one of those parts we skip over in our devotions. It won’t be on the test.)
I’ll give you the gist of this passage: If we want God to walk with us, we have to stop expecting Him to step around our crap or stop bagging it up and plopping it down at the feet of Jesus. Turn around and bury that crap like the Bible says. Do something about it. God wants to deliver us and to defeat our enemies, but how long will that take if we’re leaving our emotional and spiritual crap everywhere?!
God has empowered us all to clean up our own crap so that when He runs toward us, He’s not hopping over piles of it! Our emotional baggage, returning to sins we’ve been set free from, Christian “liberties”, carnal behaviors, things we refuse to let go of like anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, bad behaviors, and one-foot-in-the-world stuff. No judgement. Just real crap. We all have it, but we don’t all get rid of it and then we wonder what’s taking God so long to get to us…
I’ll leave you with my personal life Scripture, Philippians 3:7-14: “But what things were gain to me, I have counted these things to be loss for the sake of Christ. Yes, certainly, I count everything as loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have forfeited the loss of all things and count them as [crap] that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him…
…Not that I have already attained or have already been perfected, but I follow after it so that I may lay hold of that for which I was seized by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not count myself to have attained, but this one thing I do, forgetting [that crap] which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
#nocrap #sorrynotsorry
