Marion Jones has fallen from a very great height. Her admission of drug use will erase or call into question every title, every medal, every accomplishment she has worked so hard to achieve. Forgiving her doesn't mean condoning her cheating. It means that each of us can look in the mirror and see what she sees — a person who has cheated, compromised, broken the rules and failed in the eyes of God to live a perfect life.By the grace of God, most of us haven't fallen in the spectacularly public way that Marion Jones has. But let's not kid ourselves — when we imagine standing before God and answering for our lives, we can easily identify with her sense of shame.
Marion Jones must be experiencing a kind of agony right now. But her agony can't compare, I think, to that of those who refuse to forgive as God has forgiven them. They live in a prison of their own choosing. Read Charlie's entire post.
3 comments:
Thank you for the link, Mark.
MSNBC had a picture accompanying their story on Jones, and it struck such a chord with me. Her face had so many emotions written on it: sadness, shame, dejection, and pain. I first thought, "Good. She should feel all those things for what she's done."
And then I realized that I'm no so different from her. There have been times when I have lied, when I have covered things up, when I've tried to appear good in the eyes of others even though I knew I was being a complete phony. I'm so grateful that we have a God Who longs to forgive us, who wants us to be reconciled to Him.
Matt:
A great big "Amen!" to what you wrote. The only difference between Marion Jones' sins and my own is that hers also involved the violation of civil law.
I am a sinner who falls short of the glory of God, who deserves eternal damnation and punishment, and whose only hope is Jesus Christ, Who died and rose for people like me.
Charlie's eloquent post is a great reminder of all of that.
God bless!
Mark
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