Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-17-24

“Making a list, checking it twice…”

No, this is not a Christmas message gone astray. We all make lists… check our lists… are watched by others – bosses, teachers, coaches – according to lists. We “check the boxes.” We keep lists on our smart phones, i-Phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and – if you are like me – on various corners of paper bags and Post-It notes, even if we cannot read them the next day, if we can find where we left them…

Items on lists can be trivial; or, of course, important. I will challenge us to consider starting some lists.

Have you ever wondered how many times you sin? This list may comprise of all the things God considers sinning. So if you can remember all the people you have murdered over, say, the last week, jot them down. The same with grand theft auto and major bank heists. Then, since all sins are offensive in the eyes of a Holy God, you can move down the list to incidents of fibs, “white lies,” outright lies and other euphemisms. Jealousy? Insults? Hate speech? Gossip? Check, check, check…

Items on that list can add up pretty quickly. “Great and small,” how many? One a day? Well… maybe more a few more than that. Maybe half a dozen in all categories, if nit-pickers (um, like God) would be checking it twice.

Big deal. Six a day. Or – hang on, I stink at math – that would be, like 40 or 50 a week? Gee, that’s like 2500 a year. Sins. You know, transgressions. That adds up to 25 thousand a decade. In an average lifespan that would be…

OK, OK, I’ll change the subject. We can stay in the religious realm but try to be more esoteric. Make a list of the times you have asked God to forgive you of something. I’ll bet a lot of people, even devout Christians, hope God will forgive them of this-or-that, but don’t always bother to plead their case in prayer. All right, then, try to calculate how often you think you need to ask God’s forgiveness over something. Large or small. Even when we fool ourselves in that regard, how lengthy would that list be, say, in an average week?

Or. Turn it around. How often have you forgiven someone when they have wronged you? Even, or especially, if they have not asked your forgiveness?

Is the portion of the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” coming to mind?

Which lists of these, and similar categories, have a multitude of check-boxes in your life; and which are short lists? Are they in the right proportion? We might find it hard to “populate” such lists; to remember everything; to try and keep count. But we know that God in Heaven sees all, knows all, and “checks” things like when sparrows fall to earth… heck, God even knows every tear that falls from your eyes. The hairs on your head. Your “comings and goings.” He knew us “before we were formed in our mother’s wombs.”

Let me share one more thing about lists – specifically about a God who does make a list and no doubt checks it twice, not that He needs to. The list with your name on it will be to your credit when you have accepted Christ; and the list with the Xs will not be used against you – will be wiped clean – when you have, instead, accepted Christ. God’s grace.

A loving God knows everything about you – He knows your name, so to speak – and that should not make you paranoid as you go through life, over those hours and days and years and decades. He catches you when you fall; He forgives you when you ask; yes, He knows your name.

+ + +

Click: He Knows Your Name