He can name the week. That is what people do not understand about this.
It was not a slow drift. It was a Tuesday, and then a Thursday, and by the Sunday he had come to a settled decision about himself, and he has lived inside that decision for nine years without ever once revisiting it.
The teaching he had been given was straightforward and it was given with love: heaven opens over a clean life. Keep short accounts, stay in the light, and the sky is open over you. And for a long time he tried, and mostly managed, and felt that the arrangement was working.
Then that week happened, and what he did in it is his own business, and it was not the worst thing a person has ever done. But it was enough to end the sense that he was the kind of man the teaching was talking about.
So he stopped expecting. He still goes. He still gives what he has to give. He simply operates on the settled understanding that the open sky is for other people now, and he has arranged his whole spiritual life around not being disappointed.
If you passed a sentence on yourself in a particular week, come and sit at this table. Nobody who taught you is being named here, and nothing about your week is going to be discussed.
The verdict was yours, not His
Let us begin with the most important distinction on this page, because everything turns on it.
The teaching you received said that a clean life sits under an open sky. What happened next is that you did the sentencing yourself, in a bad week, without a hearing, and that sentence has been served ever since. Nobody handed it down. You wrote it and you signed it, and nobody else in nine years has enforced a line of it.
That is worth seeing clearly, because a sentence a person passes on himself feels exactly like the truth and it answers to nobody.
You are not under God's judgement for that week. Nothing you did in it moved Him, and the verdict standing over your life is one you issued yourself. I am not saying that to be soft on anything. The written word says there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1), and now is the word that dates it, and the Holy Spirit holds that steady in a man who has been quietly serving nine years.
What the torn curtain actually did
Here is what changed this for me, and it is not a route back to feeling clean.
When Jesus died, the curtain in the temple tore. That curtain existed to keep people out of the holiest place, and it tore from the top down, which is the direction a thing tears when it is not being torn by anyone standing on the floor.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.Hebrews 10:19
Read what the boldness rests on in that sentence. Not the state of the person entering. The blood of Jesus. The writer names the ground on purpose, because he knew exactly which question every reader would bring.
You have that boldness now, in the condition you are actually in, and the ground of it is Christ and never your record. That is written down and stated in plain terms, and the Holy Spirit sets that down in front of a man who decided nine years ago that he had put himself outside.
Do not install a gentler door
Something has to go where that verdict was, or a quieter version will move in by the weekend. Just be genuinely repentant. Just really hate it enough. Just get a clear run of months behind you first.
That is the same door with a softer handle, and it will keep you out just as effectively.
You are welcomed as you are, this evening, with the week still in your history where it will always be. Scripture says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9), and faithful and just are words about His character rather than about the quality of the confessing, and it is the Holy Spirit who has been at this table for nine years while you were sure He had stopped coming.
And if these nine years have cost more than anybody around this table knows, if sleep has gone, if the evenings have started to frighten, please talk to somebody real: your doctor, a counselor, a crisis line, and the emergency services if there is danger to anybody tonight. That is not a detour around God. It is one of the ways He keeps people.
So this is where it turns, and it is not a way back into feeling clean, because feeling clean was never the door.
God is open toward you tonight, with your week where it is, because that is who He is. You did not earn this and you cannot lose it, and there is no key in your hand that He has been waiting on. The written word says as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us (Psalm 103:12), and east and west are the two directions that never meet however far you travel, and the Holy Spirit is the one making that true about your actual history rather than about people in general.
I cannot tell you what God does next. Nobody honest can. What I can tell you is that the sentence you have been serving was never passed in His court, and that nine years of not expecting anything never once shut the way in.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, in your own voice. The authority in them is yours in Christ, and it was never issued on the strength of a clean run of years. Scripture is what it stands on, and the Holy Spirit is what makes it living rather than merely forgiven, and what God does next, and when, is His, however He answers, and no sentence here pretends to know how.
- Verdict I passed on myself that week, you are a decision I made in a bad room and you are not God's ruling on me. Romans 8 says there is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit has held that word over me for every one of the nine years. In the name of Jesus I vacate you.
- Habit of arranging my life around not being disappointed, you were never spoken over me by God, and you are not sitting at this table tonight. Hebrews 10 rests the boldness to enter on the blood of Jesus and never on the record of the one entering, and His Spirit tore that curtain from the top down. I am coming in tonight on the ground He named.
- Father, as far as the east is from the west, so far have You removed my transgressions from me, and Psalm 103 chose the two directions that never meet. I thank You that Your Spirit has been at this table for nine years while I was certain You had stopped coming. The paper is face down on the table, and the sentence I was serving was never passed in Your court.
Hebrews 10:19
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