What Can I Say?

What Can I Say?
Why do you love me?
Others, with faithfulness worn on their sleeve,
The reason you love them is easy to see.
But why lovest thou thee?
Maybe if I write and talk like a King
Thou wilt have reason to loveth me?
But failst thou daily do thee
Regal artistry fittest not me.

Why Lord do you stay?
Others, like the sunrise, exalt you each day
The reason you don’t leave? They show Your way
But why with me, Lord, do you stay?
Maybe if I give all I have away,
If I rise each morning needing but bread for the day,
I would boast of holiness my self to display
Yet your Word still would I fail to obey.

Why do you forgive me?
Others, in sackcloth repent to thee,
The reason you forgive them is easy to see
But why could you possibly forgive me?
Maybe if I confess for all to see,
If I weep, moan, and wail outwardly,
Ah... but lacking real sincerity
My life shows I’m not too sorry.

What can I possibly say?
You died for me before I even knew your way.
I fail you, yet you love me each day,
I stray from you, but with me you stay.
Your Amazing Grace is on display
You love me like I am, but won’t let me stay that way
How much gratitude, my words fail to say
How I Love You Lord... I love you more every day.

Viva Las Vegas II -or- Viva Las Sin?

Last week we discussed Psalm 51:1-4 and how it related to my return from Las Vegas. I wrote ad nauseam about who our sin is directed at…a Holy God. I have had a decent grasp of this concept for years, but never so acutely as while I was passing out Gospel literature on Las Vegas Blvd. (The Strip). Every sin, big or little, is a direct slap at Jesus Christ, the one who died for us to take the punishment we deserved. We went through the Commandments from Exodus 20 and gave a quick break down of examples of how we all sin. Sunday, I did a cursory estimate of just how many times we sin in our lifetime. I figure we probably average one lie or theft per day. Not big ones mind you, just simple lying or stealing. How can this possibly be? Lying might include exaggeration, double-mindedness, asking for forgiveness lightly, or stretching the truth on taxes. Stealing might be being lazy at work, downloading music or clip art on the computer, or paying your bills late. There are hundreds of ways of sinning in each of these areas and God holds us accountable to the whole Law based on us breaking one of the Laws (James 2:10). Figuring just one sin in this category per day, in a decade we have sinned nearly four thousand times! Tack on a few per week on each of the other Commandments and a whole bunch on the adultery (7th Commandment) and murder (6th Commandment) side due to Jesus clarifying statements explaining lust as adultery and anger as murder, and I estimate your typical person sins tens of thousands of times, conservatively, over the term of their life. Multiply that times billions of people and thousands of years and join me in understanding that this “Love God” idol we have created in the last 75 years to worship because He is more comfortable to be with is actually not God at all. The real God of the Bible loves us but deeply hates sin. He hates it so much He died to defeat its power (in the form of Jesus Christ at Calvary)! The days of making Jesus Christ out to be our snuggle-buddy are over. We need desperately to get a handle on how sin angers God.
That brings me to the next two verses of Psalm 51. Verses five and six say “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.” King David, as you may recall, was just exposed by Nathan the prophet as the phony he was. He had stolen the wife of his best general, then had his general killed after he couldn’t cover up their affair and resulting pregnancy. In verse 5 David is acknowledging that his sin isn’t something new…it was from birth. Anyone reading this article (all three of you including Mom) must recognize that babies have a naughty streak. I’ve heard it said by the late Adrian Rogers (paraphrasing) that if you give a baby the strength of an adult, then take away its bottle, just see if you won’t get your arms ripped from their sockets to retrieve the bottle! Being totally honest, how long does it take a baby to figure out how to get into trouble or break the rules? Anyone who denies this obviously has never worked in the nursery at church! Thanks to the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we are saddled with this predisposition to sin and to the desperate need of a Savior to pay our sin debt (Romans 6:23). If you struggle with the question, when asked, “Would you consider yourself a good person?” you have a false understanding of what good is. You, and I, are not…from birth.
The second verse is a tough one…possibly one of the toughest in all of scripture relating to God’s standard. “Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.” Scratching through the thin veneer of self–righteousness to see the real Mark Applegate is as easy for God as it is hard for you. I am a pretty reclusive person in my private life. I lead a pretty moral life as do many Stocktonians. God sees through the surface to see every secret sin in all of us, and hates it. By man’s standard, I am a pretty good ole boy. By God’s, fortunately, He sees the righteousness of Christ covering the real me. Jesus Christ, once I made Him Savior and Lord of my life and repented of my many sins, credited my bankrupt account with the riches of His Grace. He took the penalty of my sins and in exchange gave me right standing with Him so that He (rightfully) gets the credit for being such an awesome God! What a trade…my garbage for His Grace! It is available to you as well. Take a look at your sins and think about Jesus dying on the cross for you. Clear out the deep sin that keeps you separate from God today. Email me if you have further questions or objections. Today is the day of salvation!

FYI section…Memory verse update… week 1 Romans 3:23, week 2 Romans 6:23 Week three Ephesians 2:8-9. Weight loss update… I lost 7 pounds this week for a total loss of 34.6 pounds. I have lost 10% of my beginning body weight and am only 100 lbs from my target weight! Still an Olson twin worth to lose, but moving along well! Thank you for your prayers! I deeply appreciate your support!

Viva Las Vegas?

It sure has been a long week. I was fortunate this week to be able to attend the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I was treated to sights such as a 150” Plasma TV, brain-numbing audio systems, and many more robots than VCRs and Laserdiscs. I saw homeless beggars with better grammar on their signs than my articles possess unbelievable cross-dressing celebrity impersonators, and general widespread decadence. In the town dubbed rightfully “Sin City” and near the famous Area 51 UFO base, I began to think of writing about a mix of the names of the two places. Today I will begin a multiple week study of Psalm 51. Before reading my piece, PLEASE read Psalm 51 and make it your prayer to God. Never have I written a more important series, and never have I felt more drawn to write about a topic than today.
To begin I find it valuable to list the chapter heading, despite the fact that it isn’t directly inspired, because it is so illustrative. It says in the NASB “A Contrite Sinner's Prayer for Pardon.” David, a man after God’s own heart, after being exposed by the prophet as the murderous adulterer that he was (he had stolen his general’s wife and had him killed, then tried to cover it up), he wrote with a heavy heart “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.” (v1-4).
According to thefreedictionary.com the word “contrite” means “feeling regret and sorrow for one's sins or offenses; penitent.” David was sorry, and more. He wasn’t “Mark McGuire I am not here to talk about the past”- sorry or the “I am sorry I got caught”- sorry. He was deeply contrite. He was humbled and small before a Holy God with no excuses. If King David was on Bill O’Reilly’s news program, he would have been pressured to hire an image agent to try to touch him up before God. In antiquity, he provided no spin. We should do no less.
As much as I wish it wasn’t so, for space restraint’s sake, I will focus on one verse. Verse 4 says “Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.” As I walked down Las Vegas Boulevard in downtown Las Vegas, I saw sin as far as the eye could see. From one vantage point I could see three billboards with 99% naked women in one direction, a row of pimps wearing “Our Girls Have Gone Crazy” rain parkas in another and at least four strip clubs yet another way. I was surrounded by “those sinners!” Then, fighting through a thick layer of my self-righteousness tantamount to an Eskimo cutting through gelatinous whale blubber, God brought to my mind Psalm 51 and related it to my sin. Not nasty sinner’s sin, but my sin. The audacity! I am a deacon in training! I write a column in a prestigious paper! I buy Girl Scout cookies! I read my Bible nearly every day. God, through His amazing and humbling Word, made it painfully clear to me that my sin is equally an affront to a Holy God as the sin of the participants of the Adult Entertainment Expo porn convention in our same building.
Every sin that I have ever committed in public and private are a direct offense directed to Jesus Christ, who died for me painfully on a Roman cross knowing exactly who and what I am. Join me quickly in looking at the commandments. Have I allowed another god before the real God? (Baseball, TV, work ethic, greed, busy-ness?) It is against Him. Have I made an idol to worship? (Or, said “My God would never…” or God is a God of Love, not wrath, therefore making a god for myself that I am comfy with.) Have I taken His name in vain? (Like saying Gxx Dxxx, or just saying I am a Christian yet acting in a way that defames His Holy name.) Have I kept that Sabbath Holy? Have I honored my father and mother? (Answered yes to every request made of me, unless a sin, the first time asked.) Have I committed murder? (See anger in Matthew 5:22.) Have I committed adultery? (See Matthew 5:27-8 just lusting in your head is enough.) Have I stolen things? (Downloading music, stolen an answer, been lazy at work and stole payroll?) Have I lied? (Even white lies?) Have I wanted something of someone else’s? (I was at the largest electronics convention on Earth...duhhh!) Amazingly enough, Jesus died on the cross for me despite the fact that I have broken all these! The comparison isn’t with the homeless guy peeing on the sidewalk. My sin is compared to Christ’s sinlessness. Romans 6:23 says “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” My sin earned a debt I couldn’t pay. I should have been chucked into hell like a watermelon rind to the campfire. Amazingly Jesus died for me as a substitute punishment for my sin. I am saved, not because of how good I am or how I compare to others. I am saved because of how amazingly Good our God is.
Sure the town of Las Vegas is nasty. Lots of sin everywhere! Lots of sin in Stockton too! Lots of sin in my life and every last bit of it is directed at God. Today is the day to repent/turn from our sins by first joining me (and King David) in understanding who they were aimed at. What a wonderful God we serve who would die for us anyway! If you have questions or stumbling blocks about Christianity, please email me right away!
Quick updates…Diet update…308.4 lbs…down from two weeks ago but up 2 pounds last week. Las Vegas has really good buffets!
Memory Verse Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23. Join me in memorizing one a week!