What struck was realizing how easily accusation can disguise itself as discernment, even when it sounds spiritual. Naming Satan as the enemy matters—but just as much is recognizing how often his voice works by redirecting blame inward or sideways, until relationships fracture under a weight they were never meant to carry. Without grace, we are all abandoned to hate and bitterness.
So true! Fyi- our family started a notebook called the “Common Place” where we write quotes, inspirations, observations, etc. I started printing your writings for the kids to read and leaving them in there. Some are adverse to reading on screens and this is the work around.
So much of what you’ve written over the past few months has landed uncomfortably close to home, Rev. The Evil Accuser does not rest, and his long history of deception is well documented. And while Scripture gives us no explicit record of Adam and Eve’s inner lament after the Fall (no diary of despair or spoken sorrow) I can scarcely imagine that the reality of what they had done was anything less than crushing. Surely the pain, agony, and shame ran far deeper than the brief line we’re given:
“I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid… and I hid myself.” (Gen. 3:10)
Tongue firmly in cheek here...but that silence has crossed my mind a few times over the years when I’ve been working through brokenness and reconciliation with my own parents. I once joked, “Well, at least you didn’t do something that resulted in the fall of all mankind.” To which my mother, without missing a beat, replied, “And high praise to you, my son, for not killing your brother.” Mind you, I only have sisters. Well played Mom!
Humor aside, your piece captures something devastatingly true: the courtroom of the accuser is relentless, and it teaches us to read every ache, failure, and misunderstanding as evidence of a verdict already decided. And it’s mind numbing how easily that voice convinces us that God’s grace is the setup, not the sentence.
Thank you for reading it with that kind of attention.
That line from Genesis reveals our natural posture: fear, hiding, and a world suddenly read as hostile. That is the courtroom. And the accuser doesn’t need to keep speaking loudly once that grammar is the mother tongue.
Shame and repentance are far from the same thing, though they often travel together at first. Repentance turns you back to God. Shame teaches you to hide from Him while calling it humility. That confusion is relentless once it sets its rules.
Grace is received. Undoing the assumptions takes time, truth, and the kindness of someone who refuses to play prosecutor when the script otherwise demands it.
Grace doesn’t erase dysfunction, denial, or harm. It doesn’t rename slavery as virtue or lies as misunderstanding. But it refuses to let fracture be the deeper truth.
A home can be broken and still be founded on grace. If return is always possible, if love is not withdrawn as a form of punishment, if belonging is not revoked when things go wrong, there is always mercy new in the morning.
Without that hope, everything gets flattened into accusation, including the past.
That quote has been stuck in my mind a couple of days. 1977....I am, unfortunately, a five year old with all of his possessions dropped off on the front lawn of my grandmother's house, with me and my brother, and my mom crying in her childhood bedroom. Craziness, chaos, all kinds of things that would not work for me in adult life as a Christian husband and father, but, there was grace there, especially for my failings.
“I’m to blame”. I hear that so often in my head. And it’s true. But He came to save me from me. So all the accuser can do is point to the “old man”. The accuser is “right” when he blames me. The old Adam is here, right beside me, inside me. Point out his faults and you are right to a T. Full confession, you got me. But wait….point out His faults. He lives inside me too. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus……the accuser attacks the old man because he is justified in doing so. Am I to blame? Yes. Is Jesus to blame? No. And He is mine and I am His. So accuse the old man, it’s all true. But you can’t touch the New Man. He is secure in Jesus……so go ahead and accuse me……what’s that to Christ but a bloody cross and an empty grave……..be gone accuser, you are right and at the same time wrong….
I understand your wrestling Jonathan and thank you for sharing it. It benefits us!
P.S. I think what makes the accuser such a formidable foe is that he isn’t wrong. He’s right……but he’s not right either……..
The accuser survives by telling truths out of order and without telos. He points accurately at the old man, but he does so to deny the reality of the New. He names fault without naming authority. He cites evidence while rejecting the verdict already rendered in Jesus Christ.
Confession belongs to the light. Accusation belongs to the dark. Both speak about sin, but only one speaks from the Cross and toward resurrection. The difference isn’t whether the charge is technically true. It’s who is allowed to decide what that truth means.
That’s why “no condemnation” isn’t denial. It’s jurisdiction. The old man is named, judged, and buried. The New Man is not on trial. Thank you for articulating that tension so clearly.
Beautifully said David. Reminds me of this Luther quote that I always loved:
"So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: 'I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!'"
Brother, as someone who did psychedelics, and other drugs, and had been in that same darkness and mindset for most of his life until I was called back to the church last year, I feel you, deeply. You're not alone in this. Best we can do is trust in the Lord and with His help, snatch some of our brothers and sisters out of that same fire. If you need any help sorting things out, reach out to me. Grace and peace be with you.
Thank you for saying that, and for the generosity behind it.
What I’m trying to name here isn’t a season of darkness so much as a structure that can persist even inside faith, and which feeds on the bitterness of others that empathic people all too easily pick up as our own.
Trusting the Lord, for me, has looks less like being pulled out of fire and more knowing God is with me in the fire.
I’m glad you found your way back, and I appreciate the kindness of the offer. Grace and peace to you as well.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. Jesus Christ loves you.
😭 So good! Thanking God for this reconciliation.
I see everywhere- especially our generation- the parent/child estranged relationship. To hear that one has reconciled gives me great hope.
I tell myself often in conflict- that person is not my enemy, Satan is. It took a while to remove the blinders and see that truth.
Thank you. I share that gratitude.
What struck was realizing how easily accusation can disguise itself as discernment, even when it sounds spiritual. Naming Satan as the enemy matters—but just as much is recognizing how often his voice works by redirecting blame inward or sideways, until relationships fracture under a weight they were never meant to carry. Without grace, we are all abandoned to hate and bitterness.
So true! Fyi- our family started a notebook called the “Common Place” where we write quotes, inspirations, observations, etc. I started printing your writings for the kids to read and leaving them in there. Some are adverse to reading on screens and this is the work around.
So much of what you’ve written over the past few months has landed uncomfortably close to home, Rev. The Evil Accuser does not rest, and his long history of deception is well documented. And while Scripture gives us no explicit record of Adam and Eve’s inner lament after the Fall (no diary of despair or spoken sorrow) I can scarcely imagine that the reality of what they had done was anything less than crushing. Surely the pain, agony, and shame ran far deeper than the brief line we’re given:
“I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid… and I hid myself.” (Gen. 3:10)
Tongue firmly in cheek here...but that silence has crossed my mind a few times over the years when I’ve been working through brokenness and reconciliation with my own parents. I once joked, “Well, at least you didn’t do something that resulted in the fall of all mankind.” To which my mother, without missing a beat, replied, “And high praise to you, my son, for not killing your brother.” Mind you, I only have sisters. Well played Mom!
Humor aside, your piece captures something devastatingly true: the courtroom of the accuser is relentless, and it teaches us to read every ache, failure, and misunderstanding as evidence of a verdict already decided. And it’s mind numbing how easily that voice convinces us that God’s grace is the setup, not the sentence.
+peace+
Mac
Thank you for reading it with that kind of attention.
That line from Genesis reveals our natural posture: fear, hiding, and a world suddenly read as hostile. That is the courtroom. And the accuser doesn’t need to keep speaking loudly once that grammar is the mother tongue.
Shame and repentance are far from the same thing, though they often travel together at first. Repentance turns you back to God. Shame teaches you to hide from Him while calling it humility. That confusion is relentless once it sets its rules.
Grace is received. Undoing the assumptions takes time, truth, and the kindness of someone who refuses to play prosecutor when the script otherwise demands it.
"But underneath all of it, I remember most of all being raised in a home founded on grace."
Severe disfunction, denial, lies, alcoholism - but, seriously, underneath all of it, I remember most of all being raised in a home founded on grace.
Yes. That tension matters.
Grace doesn’t erase dysfunction, denial, or harm. It doesn’t rename slavery as virtue or lies as misunderstanding. But it refuses to let fracture be the deeper truth.
A home can be broken and still be founded on grace. If return is always possible, if love is not withdrawn as a form of punishment, if belonging is not revoked when things go wrong, there is always mercy new in the morning.
Without that hope, everything gets flattened into accusation, including the past.
Thank you for putting words to it.
That quote has been stuck in my mind a couple of days. 1977....I am, unfortunately, a five year old with all of his possessions dropped off on the front lawn of my grandmother's house, with me and my brother, and my mom crying in her childhood bedroom. Craziness, chaos, all kinds of things that would not work for me in adult life as a Christian husband and father, but, there was grace there, especially for my failings.
Powerful testimony--God bless you.
“I’m to blame”. I hear that so often in my head. And it’s true. But He came to save me from me. So all the accuser can do is point to the “old man”. The accuser is “right” when he blames me. The old Adam is here, right beside me, inside me. Point out his faults and you are right to a T. Full confession, you got me. But wait….point out His faults. He lives inside me too. There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus……the accuser attacks the old man because he is justified in doing so. Am I to blame? Yes. Is Jesus to blame? No. And He is mine and I am His. So accuse the old man, it’s all true. But you can’t touch the New Man. He is secure in Jesus……so go ahead and accuse me……what’s that to Christ but a bloody cross and an empty grave……..be gone accuser, you are right and at the same time wrong….
I understand your wrestling Jonathan and thank you for sharing it. It benefits us!
P.S. I think what makes the accuser such a formidable foe is that he isn’t wrong. He’s right……but he’s not right either……..
Yes—and this is the razor’s edge.
The accuser survives by telling truths out of order and without telos. He points accurately at the old man, but he does so to deny the reality of the New. He names fault without naming authority. He cites evidence while rejecting the verdict already rendered in Jesus Christ.
Confession belongs to the light. Accusation belongs to the dark. Both speak about sin, but only one speaks from the Cross and toward resurrection. The difference isn’t whether the charge is technically true. It’s who is allowed to decide what that truth means.
That’s why “no condemnation” isn’t denial. It’s jurisdiction. The old man is named, judged, and buried. The New Man is not on trial. Thank you for articulating that tension so clearly.
Beautifully said David. Reminds me of this Luther quote that I always loved:
"So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: 'I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!'"
Brother, as someone who did psychedelics, and other drugs, and had been in that same darkness and mindset for most of his life until I was called back to the church last year, I feel you, deeply. You're not alone in this. Best we can do is trust in the Lord and with His help, snatch some of our brothers and sisters out of that same fire. If you need any help sorting things out, reach out to me. Grace and peace be with you.
Thank you for saying that, and for the generosity behind it.
What I’m trying to name here isn’t a season of darkness so much as a structure that can persist even inside faith, and which feeds on the bitterness of others that empathic people all too easily pick up as our own.
Trusting the Lord, for me, has looks less like being pulled out of fire and more knowing God is with me in the fire.
I’m glad you found your way back, and I appreciate the kindness of the offer. Grace and peace to you as well.
Tears!