shotgun jesus

a few months ago a neighbor invited me to go shooting with him out on one of his friends' farms. i've never shot a gun before and i have always wanted to try shooting a real gun. more than anything, i'm always looking for ways to connect with neighbors and build relationships with people outside of christian subculture, so i said yes.

it was fun. really, really fun. except for the huge bruise that developed on my arm the day after, it was a really great time. (i should have known to not try out that 3.5in shell in the shotgun!) shooting the clay pigeons with a shotgun was my favorite by far. i thought i had pretty good aim for a first-timer.

i was studying in romans 5-8 recently. i've been wrestling with how my understanding of the christian life is really framed differently than the jesus-life talked about in romans 5-8. i wonder if it's because i make jesus into a shotgun for sin. my life is like the trap that shoots the clay pigeons of sin and jesus is the shotgun that shoots them down. and no doubt, he's accurate...jesus hits them each time i confess sin. in my understanding, jesus takes care of past sin. accept jesus as your savior and all your past sins will be forgiven.

but romans seems to have a different concept...that jesus takes care of sin in a different way: he releases us from the power of sin itself. the focus isn't on all the bad things i've done in the past, but on the source of sin itself. jesus seems to want to shoot up the old box of clay pigeons by the trap and bring in new boxes of life-fruit.

so now i'm asking jesus to come and shoot up the boxes. i don't think i'm still getting all that paul wrote, but that will be a start.