Theses 3-6

Last night I was reading Forde's On Being a Theologian of the Cross after being begged and prodded by Rob for about a month to do so. I was putting it off in order to mentally recover from my summer class I took in which I read 6 Shakespeare plays in about 5 weeks. And wrote an 8 page paper! Needless to say I'd been braindead since. Anyways, back to the point. I was reading and thinking about the perplexing and hard to swallow, yet completely true idea that there is nothing good about me. Forde was expanding on the Heidelburg Disputation theses 3-6 which focus on the works of man vs. the works of God. All works of man are a mortal sin, unless they are feared to be a mortal sin. All works of God are good, yet tainted by sin because we often are the bringers of such works and we cannot help but make them sinful because that is what we are through and through. This reminds me of the guy who wrote The Spirituality of the Cross (I unfortunately forget his name). In this book he said, "go do good deeds and then repent of them." This I found to wonderfully freeing and equally maddening. I want to be able to go something good. I want to be able to claim the deeds that Christ does in me, and show them to people saying, "Look at how much Christ is changing me, look at these wonderfully selfless and charitable works that I have done."

Being honest with myself to this degree first led me to recognize how little I have changed since Christ began his work in me when I was baptised at 4 or 5. Second, it made me recognize how little I repent. Really I only do it on Sunday at Church during the confession and absolution.
And third, and most importantly, I began to believe that I am truley sinful through and through, and that I could honestly say, "I am evil, yet I am redeemed."