As christians most of us have life verses that we try and live by and we want to let it shine in our lives. We speak it over people, have it highlighted and underlined in our bible and put a nice filter to it on our instagram as we do our morning devotion and when times get tough we turn to that verse for help. One of my life verse that I try and live by is Hebrews 12:1-2a “Therefore since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.” The thing is though more often than not it feels as if my life verse is Romans 2:23 “For everyone has sinned: we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”
Romans 2:23 takes over as I give into pride, anger, impatience or any number of things that God is helping me with. I end up taking a detour on the race or trip and fall. As I try to get back into the race or feel i have the need to catch up, I try running harder and faster. To me this is reading my bible more, praying more, pumping up myself to “break every chain” and making promises that I will never do it again. All in an effort to make myself feel better and hide the fact that I have sinned. I may be running harder but the problem is that I am running blind and it is hard to “keep my eyes of Jesus” when I am blind.
I have let my sin blind me to the grace of God, I have allowed the devil to discredit myself and who I am in God. I feel as if I have to get to “better” in order to be effective in the ministry of making God’s name famous. But as God says In Hosea 6:6 “I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices,I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.” God wants us to show His love that is in us, to keep on going out into this hurting world to bring healing In Jesus name. He wants me to get to know Him, not just offer lip service and make him a bigger part of my checklist each day. My problem is that as times in my life when I sin I find it hard to get to know Him. Because truth is I don’t feel worthy enough to be in his presence to really dive deep into all that God has for me. I believe that I am not good enough to get God’s best and I have to work to get back on his good side. In the spirit of christmas I feel as if I have been put on the “naughty list.”
Funny thing though, I am a fallen being, I will always have to deal with sin in my life I will never be at the point where I am to good to sin. I hope as I get older and wiser some sin will become less of a problem, but I am sure new ones will arise as life changes. If Romans 3:23 is going to be one of my life verses I better learn to add verse 24 at the end. “Yet God with his undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.” I don’t have to work my way back into God’s grace, His kindness is undeserved, He has taken away the penalty for my sins. I am not thrown on the “naughty list” missing out on the goodness of God. As I ask for forgiveness I am able to receive all that God has for me, I can press into it, There is no timeouts or having my privileges in God taken away God will not give me a lump of coal when I ask him for help. Yes there will be consequences for my actions, but I am not taken away from the presence, power and grace of God. I am not discredited from being his servant, I can still bring God glory.
I know on this world race and in the next month I will make mistakes, I will get angry, prideful, selfish, bitter, give into temptation and lose the vision that God has for me. When this happens I must ask for forgiveness and run right back into my father’s arms. I do not have to try harder and be better in order for his arms to pick me up and say welcome back. The prodigal son did not have to work to get back into his father’s house, He just had to come back to Him. So for now in my life I will try and live out Hebrews 12, but as Romans 3:23 comes into play and the devil uses it against me, I will just make sure he reads verse 24 as well.
