Crossing the Line

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     Luke 8:2 says, “And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,”

     I have found myself again in the middle of controversy because of some of my “pastoral” endeavors where I caused certain employees to “cross the line.”  While I am being protected because of senile old age, or so they say, I have ended up causing people to “cross the line.” so to speak resulting in the possibility of them losing their license.  I just can’t seem to stay out of trouble with a capital “T” so the music man says,

     As I thought about my predicament and the one in which I have forced others to be, I have heard constantly that “they crossed the line.”  My thought is, who hasn’t crossed the line.  The Lord Jesus Christ seemed to spend much of His ministry to people with those who had crossed the line.  Mary Magdalene crossed the line.  The woman at the well crossed the line,  John the apostle crossed the line as well as Peter .  Levi was a tax collector who had crossed the line.  When you come down to it, we can all say that we have crossed the line.  I crossed the line.  Now that we have established that, what are we to do about it?  That is why we need a Savior who can get us back on the other side of the line.  Romans 3:23 says that virtually everyone has sinned and therefore are guilty of crossing the line.  It only takes about five minutes or less to be guilty of crossing the line of righteousness and deserving the full wrath of God and so we find that He knew it was going to happen and therefore sent us a Savior.  Unfortunately in the business world, there is no forgiveness or consideration but merely to condemn the guilty party for crossing the line of the handbook or “corporate.”    I thank God daily for the fact that He has forgiven me for crossing the line so many times you can’t count them.  It  is that way with every sinner who repents truly in their hearts.  It’s also called, “Chrsitian growth.”  We seem to always want sinners to look like us, to talk like us, to smell like us and to behave like us.  Well, it doesn't happen that way.  I recall one time in church that my friend Jeff Noland disguised himself as a homeless person and sat down in the church to prepare for a children's message at the appointed time in the morning service.  People looked at him almost in disgust and wouldn’t sit near him and they did not recognize who he was.  He did a good job on that disguise.  The point is, we often are too critical of the outward appearance of all th ose who have crossed their lines and we can’t see our own dilemma. Praise God that someday we will ALL be dressed in robes of white and have a new name, written down in GLORY.