Ash Wednesday

Today I was talking to a friend about Ash Wednesday, and they said it was about convicting ourselves of how sinful we are. That doesn't sound like a good activity to me. I stated my negative opinion of this by saying, "You'll never get me to do that!" No, they won't get me to feel utterly horrible about myself, I do that enough all by myself, I don't need to think that God also thinks I'm rotten. But, I added this as to why I wouldn't do it "Christ already took care of that." Yes, if we are to believe that Christ wiped away our sins, what in the world are we doing bringing sin back into the picture? They keep killing Christ over and over, for what? Of course we do harmful things to each other, but Christ never said "Focus upon your sins." He said "I've come to take away the sins of the world." They are gone. They are not kept on record. Nor in a book. Are we saying that Christ didn't accomplish what He came to do, that we are still such awful things? Instead of feeling bad, let's feel good! Let's take our convictions, and do something beautiful. Paul talked of this, when he talked about his thorn. That thorn could have been a sin, but instead of feeling like he was a bad person, he took that thorn and gave glory to God through it. That would be the only beneficial reason to even see our sins is to do something to heal the wounds created by them. Love sees sins and says "What can I do to heal this situation?" Love doesn't see sins and say "What horrors! Boo! What have I done?! What have you done?! I hate myself! I hate you! I hate what I've done!" Yeah, really try to imagine Love hating. It doesn't work. Love loves. That's how sin leaves, through love. As the Bible says "God so loved the world He gave His Son!" He loved! He gave! It wasn't "God so hated sin, He forced His Son to be crucified so He could forgive those stupid humans for all their evil deeds." We turn Christ's gift into a nightmare! And we turn our puny little lives into lives that should be squashed! What do we do that for? We hate ourselves so much. Let's not do that anymore. Let's love.