A friend of mine passed on a blog that looks interesting, although I haven't gone through much of it yet. For now, I'm concentrating on this latest one titled, "Obedience cannot be balanced." Like a good writer, he observes something in life that's worthy of ink, or in this case, bytes of data, and puts it down on paper... web space... whatever. Aaron, as he identifies himself, is absolutely right when he points out the ridiculousness of "carbon offset," the idea that you can pay to plant trees to atone for your vehicle's emissions on a pristine--well, lets just say "gently used" planet. He points out the conceptual kinship to the Double Quarter Pounder, Large Onion Rings, & Diet Pepsi phenomenon, where people order the combo thinking it's balanced nutrition. I even agree with his comparison to the Christian walk as not a moderated, balanced commitment, save this one small thing.

While our God is utterly holy and His law requires un-moderated obedience, Aaron does not address how capable any of us are in meeting that required obedience. In this case, none of us can pay the penalty to offset our sins of commission and omission. There is no form of payment we can offer. Quite seriously, the payment required life blood of the unblemished, sinless man, found only in Jesus Christ. It is by that life blood that grace is offered to Aaron, to you and to me. This grace is not carbon offset or balanced nutrition in the sense that we have both sinned and recovered from it. While we were still foundering and flailing about in our sins, Christ died for us. We had no hope without Him. While some are off to save us from carbon emissions and others want to charge us to lose 10 vanity pounds of water weight, the most serious work has already been done. All we have to do it take it and believe it, and then trust that His love that started at the cross will keep changing us until we see Him in His unequalled glory.

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