Reason #654
There's a secular song, of which I would not promote, and the first verse says "I may be bad but I'm perfectly good at it." And if you're anything like me, this line may resonate really well with you. Bad, how so? I don't regularly commit heinous crimes, and I would consider myself a decently good person most days. But I realize that I spend a lot of my time doing things that aren't the best for me, and it seems I do them really well. For example, I am really good at being selfish. I am good at eating unhealthy. I do a great job of not working out or getting enough sleep. I am good at not consistently reading my bible. I'd probably win a medal if judging were a sport, and I could probably even place in the category of gossiping. It's easy for me to feed my flesh with worldly desires. I have no problem spending my time on fruitless, worthless efforts. I am a pro at comparing myself to others and wanting things I don't have. I easily give in to envy, jealousy, anger, anxiety, stress, and frustration. And that right there, although it is a limited list, should be enough proof that I am perfectly good at a whole lot of bad things.
We studied Romans 3 on Sunday, and Romans is proving to be a book that is challenging my thoughts in new ways. In Romans, Paul spends a lot of time challenging the ideas and beliefs of the Jews. Because he begins questioning their so called law. The thing they've built their lives around. He begins introducing this new concept of grace, which is something completely foreign to them. He challenges them to take a look at their hearts rather than their title. Because everyone knows that God chose the Jews as His own people. And when He set them free from slavery in Egypt, He took them out in the wilderness and He spent a considerable amount of time giving them a law to live by. A whole big list of do's and don't's to follow. Something concrete that they could abide by. This was how they were called to live their lives, and this is what they clung to. And now, thousands of years later, this man is standing before them saying the law is not the one most important thing. He's telling them that although it's noble and good that they live by God's standards, they also desperately need this thing called grace. And Jesus was the one who brought about grace, which was a game changer to their long-lived traditions.
I'm a law-abiding girl. Give me a list of what to do and what not to do and I'll stick to it. I've lived my life this way for so long. I wanted to please the Lord, I wanted to exemplify Him well, and in my mind that meant I needed to do everything right. And so I felt like I did a really good job of being good. I felt like my life measured up pretty well because I did not do things that were on the "don't's list." And so grace wasn't really that big of a deal to me. After all, I tried to live in a way where I didn't mess up so that I didn't disappoint the Lord and have to ask for grace. The way I see it, it's easier to just get it right the first time than mess up and have to ask for forgiveness later. I didn't see the significance of this grace that Paul preached about. I definitely thought it was a beautiful thing, and even made for a really great middle name, but grace seemed like an out more than anything and I was more inclined to be a law abider than a grace card holder.
"For the more we know God's law, the clearer it becomes that we aren't obeying it." (Romans 3:20)
The more you know, the more you realize you have a lot to learn. This has proven to be true for me. Because, like Paul preached over and over and over again, it's not just about what you do, it's about where your heart is, too. And it's not just the law that saves you and it's not just grace that saves you, it's both. It's knowing God and living for God. "Only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law." (Romans 3:31) Because when we know the law, and the magnitude of it, we realize that we fall short day after day after day. Maybe we're not murdering, stealing, or breaking it with our actions, but our hearts are jealous, envious, spiteful, hateful, and prideful. And when we realize that, we realize that we so desperately need God's grace, too. We need it just as much as the next guy, because truth be told, when it comes to being imperfect, sinful people, we're all in the same boat together.
And so I praise God for His grace because it really is a big deal. I praise Him that He would love a girl who really is so perfectly good at being bad. That He would love her enough to show her those things and start to change them about her. That He wouldn't let her stay set in her secret, hidden, wrong ways but that He would challenge her so that she would become more and more like Him. It's not easy, but that's where grace steps in. Grace says, "Hey, you've gotten this wrong a million times before but I'm going to give you another chance. And, what's more, I'm going to help you overcome this one so that you don't have to live enslaved to it for the rest of your days." Because, clearly, I don't always get it right and I never have. So I thank the good Lord that He not only gives us standards to live by (for law-loving people like me), yet that He also extends us grace so that we can keep on living even after we break those very laws. Lord, thank you for having a good plan from the beginning and for making it even better by sending Jesus to die for my sinful ways so that I could receive your grace rather than your wrath.
#654 - For His good standards and for His abundant grace, because we desperately need them both!
"For all have sinned, all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet now God, in His gracious kindness, declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins." - Romans 3:23-24
We studied Romans 3 on Sunday, and Romans is proving to be a book that is challenging my thoughts in new ways. In Romans, Paul spends a lot of time challenging the ideas and beliefs of the Jews. Because he begins questioning their so called law. The thing they've built their lives around. He begins introducing this new concept of grace, which is something completely foreign to them. He challenges them to take a look at their hearts rather than their title. Because everyone knows that God chose the Jews as His own people. And when He set them free from slavery in Egypt, He took them out in the wilderness and He spent a considerable amount of time giving them a law to live by. A whole big list of do's and don't's to follow. Something concrete that they could abide by. This was how they were called to live their lives, and this is what they clung to. And now, thousands of years later, this man is standing before them saying the law is not the one most important thing. He's telling them that although it's noble and good that they live by God's standards, they also desperately need this thing called grace. And Jesus was the one who brought about grace, which was a game changer to their long-lived traditions.
I'm a law-abiding girl. Give me a list of what to do and what not to do and I'll stick to it. I've lived my life this way for so long. I wanted to please the Lord, I wanted to exemplify Him well, and in my mind that meant I needed to do everything right. And so I felt like I did a really good job of being good. I felt like my life measured up pretty well because I did not do things that were on the "don't's list." And so grace wasn't really that big of a deal to me. After all, I tried to live in a way where I didn't mess up so that I didn't disappoint the Lord and have to ask for grace. The way I see it, it's easier to just get it right the first time than mess up and have to ask for forgiveness later. I didn't see the significance of this grace that Paul preached about. I definitely thought it was a beautiful thing, and even made for a really great middle name, but grace seemed like an out more than anything and I was more inclined to be a law abider than a grace card holder.
"For the more we know God's law, the clearer it becomes that we aren't obeying it." (Romans 3:20)
The more you know, the more you realize you have a lot to learn. This has proven to be true for me. Because, like Paul preached over and over and over again, it's not just about what you do, it's about where your heart is, too. And it's not just the law that saves you and it's not just grace that saves you, it's both. It's knowing God and living for God. "Only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law." (Romans 3:31) Because when we know the law, and the magnitude of it, we realize that we fall short day after day after day. Maybe we're not murdering, stealing, or breaking it with our actions, but our hearts are jealous, envious, spiteful, hateful, and prideful. And when we realize that, we realize that we so desperately need God's grace, too. We need it just as much as the next guy, because truth be told, when it comes to being imperfect, sinful people, we're all in the same boat together.
And so I praise God for His grace because it really is a big deal. I praise Him that He would love a girl who really is so perfectly good at being bad. That He would love her enough to show her those things and start to change them about her. That He wouldn't let her stay set in her secret, hidden, wrong ways but that He would challenge her so that she would become more and more like Him. It's not easy, but that's where grace steps in. Grace says, "Hey, you've gotten this wrong a million times before but I'm going to give you another chance. And, what's more, I'm going to help you overcome this one so that you don't have to live enslaved to it for the rest of your days." Because, clearly, I don't always get it right and I never have. So I thank the good Lord that He not only gives us standards to live by (for law-loving people like me), yet that He also extends us grace so that we can keep on living even after we break those very laws. Lord, thank you for having a good plan from the beginning and for making it even better by sending Jesus to die for my sinful ways so that I could receive your grace rather than your wrath.
#654 - For His good standards and for His abundant grace, because we desperately need them both!
"For all have sinned, all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet now God, in His gracious kindness, declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins." - Romans 3:23-24
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