{"id":2165,"date":"2011-06-13T17:24:03","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T00:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=2165"},"modified":"2014-06-22T06:22:30","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T13:22:30","slug":"too-narrow-to-hide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2011\/too-narrow-to-hide\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Narrow to Hide"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"behind<\/a>We humans have a disposition to hide behind the failings and shortcomings of another.<\/p>\n

That is, we try to.<\/p>\n

It really is a dumb effort.<\/p>\n

But we’re still prone to try it.<\/p>\n

Somehow, we seem to think another’s flaw provides us with the flawless excuse<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Another’s gossip and evil surmisings are too narrow to hide<\/b> my vengeful thoughts or fight-fire-with-fire speech.<\/p>\n

Someone’s hypocrisy is too narrow to hide<\/b> my apostasy.<\/p>\n

Another’s wrong is too narrow to hide<\/b> my unforgiveness. In fact, my own hurt at another’s misdeed is too narrow to hide<\/b> my unforgiving spirit. <\/p>\n

The preacher who preaches forgiveness but practices something else is too narrow to hide<\/b> my bitterness at his unwillingness to accept my apology.<\/p>\n

\"behind<\/a><\/p>\n

That Christian’s inconsistencies are too narrow to hide<\/b> my disobedience.<\/p>\n

Another’s injustice is too narrow to hide<\/b> my own whatever-it-is-I-am-trying-to-hide.<\/p>\n

My self-righteousness and self-justification are too narrow to hide<\/b> my sin and imperfections.<\/p>\n

My good deeds and noble character and moral life are all too narrow to hide<\/b> my failures to match God’s holiness.<\/p>\n

My accomplishments and sacrifices are too narrow to hide<\/b> my pride or my lack of love.<\/p>\n

Did I miss what you’re trying to hide behind right now?<\/p>\n

No doubt, it also is too narrow to hide<\/b> behind.<\/p>\n

No good I do or am will ever be anything other than too narrow to hide<\/b> my faults.<\/p>\n

The hugest, most-awful offense against me will always be too narrow to hide<\/b> my own sin, no matter how “teeny” it seems to me.<\/p>\n

\"behind<\/a><\/p>\n

In fact, if you make the biggest shield of all time using all the hypocrites of all time, it will still be too narrow to hide<\/b> behind.<\/p>\n

It just can’t be done!<\/p>\n

None of these shields work.<\/p>\n

Not in this life.<\/p>\n

Not when we face the Judge at the end of life.<\/p>\n

So let’s not try.<\/p>\n

Better to go to Jesus<\/strong> in humble repentance, seeking His favor and forgiveness and cleansing.<\/p>\n

Then we won’t need to try the impossible: Hide from God or find fool-proof excuses to use on God.<\/p>\n

Excuses are fool-proof only in this sense: they prove our foolishness<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can I hide my sin behind a hypocrite?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,395,12,20],"tags":[72,184],"class_list":["post-2165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-101","category-dumb-and-such","category-lessons-for-living","category-youve-been-warned","tag-christianity","tag-judgment"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-yV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}