"Joey, Joey, Joey...WHAT are you doing?"
You know?
I mean, lets face it. I say the wrong things. In fact, oftentimes I say the opposite of what I meant to say, and it comes out all wrong. Or I'll set out to do something holy and make a mess of things. I slip up, I get tripped up, I do things for my glory instead of His. I start out with the best intentions and well..
I fall down and need His help to get back up a thousand times a day.
If I wasn't walking with Christ, the magnitude of my moral failings would probably overwhelm and consume me. But the fact that I am? It makes all the difference.
Because instead of fixating on each specific detail of why I happened to fall short that day (girls especially might feel me about this worrying tendency), I can instead joyfully focus and remember intently the gospel of Christ. The Good News of our redemption and reconciliation with the Lord applies to our every day, every moment, every second lives, too. If we allow Jesus to come into our hearts as Lord of our lives, do we absolutely have salvation and are we absolutely viewed spotless and blameless before the throne room of Almighty God from now until eternity? Oh yes, and thank you Jesus. Those are the big things. But part of the reason why the Good News is so good (great, amazing, wonderful) is that our Savior meets us right where we're at and gives us the strength and peace we need for our little things too. And all those "little things" are actually big things in disguise.
Doing our laundry. Walking around. Running our errands. It can all be used for God and done for His glory.
And yes, even our slipping up. For God works all things together for our good and knows what we are going to do before we even do it, yet He STILL pardons us and gives us grace and mercy. He accepts our plea for forgiveness, because sin no longer has power over us when we are living our lives in Him.
Does that mean we abuse this unheard of freedom we possess? Of course not. As Paul writes in Galatians 5:13,
13 For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
We are not to take advantage of our Lord's kindness and gift, but instead nourish it, guard it, and protect it as the most sacred and wonderful thing in the world. Because that's what it is. It is your life song as well as your snow day melody.
I speak this to you as well as to myself - the day that we allow the Gospel to become an archaic thing waxed poetic and lose not only the basic glory of it all but the practical, applicable, awe-inspiring realizations that we can carry with us into our everydays is the day that we also suffer a blow worse than we might even realize. Because we are the ones that lose in that case. We are the ones that suffer and find ourselves wanting. It is not magic, or a fairy dust we are to keep in a locket of some sort, but a gift we must consciously receive and apply and cultivate as we would our very own garden.
But I'm not talking like rutabegas, here. I'm talking gold. Not that gold grows, but you see.
(Or like kale. Isn't there a kale shortage sending all young cultured people into a tizzy right now?
No matter. Liken it to a harvest of whatever is precious to you, and multiply that by infinity.)
^^^ Example of how sometimes I just talk. I MUST be stopped.
At any rate, this is my heart epiphany of the day. To REJOICE in the free gift of having our slates wiped clean and our mess-ups made new.
For
15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)
Christ knows and understands we will fall short. He takes our hurts and missteps and petitions for us on our behalf to the Father anyway. When God looks on us, He sees the perfection of His son Jesus and the completed work that HE did, not our weaknesses.
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 2:1)
We must instead live without fear and constantly give our lives over to Him as a living sacrifice, for as Romans 12:1-2 reinforces,
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
And we can move forward confidently and without fear or anxiety knowing based on the passage in Romans 12:1-2 that:
A. If we present our bodies to the Lord in obedience, it is holy and acceptable in His sight.
B. To do so is simply our "reasonable service" - ie, this is something we can and ought to and are able to do by His help and loving guidance.
C. We will be transformed and equipped and motivated to do this as He renews our mind and way of thinking - and therefore will also be able to show others what the mighty work of God looks like when we commit our ways to Him.
We can take heart knowing that He will help us live lives that are holy and pleasing to Him, and that yes, even in our mess-ups and simply mundane activities, His grace..
"...is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
So next time you give yourself a nice little facepalm, be encouraged and remember the immense gift you have been given -- the incomparable forgiveness and pardon by Jesus unlike the world gives, and the strength in which to move forward in freedom for the rest of your days.
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