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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Nobody is perfect and in Christ you don't have to be.

Galatians 2:17-21

17-18 Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan. 

19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. 

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily. 

For me dealing with rejection and failure has always been hard. I felt like if someone rejected me or if I tried to do something and couldn't accomplish it to the satisfaction of others then that was a reflection of how God felt about me. I felt that I was only as beneficial to God as my number of successes, and the amount of acceptance I aquired from others. I would try my hardest as though my life depended on it but if I still didn't get positive results then that meant that something was wrong with me. I wasn't good enough, I failed. I failed God. Nobody wants me, a nobody loser, not even the Lord himself. How could he want someone who seemed to never do anything right. The truth of the matter is no matter how much I hurt because plans failed or people rejected me Gods love for me is Everlasting and so it is for you too. I am learning day by day on a more intimate level about Gods love for me. It has been a great healing but I still need to grow. I pray that you are blessed, because I know that I am not alone.

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