God fascinates me. He is in all places, knows all things, and has a grasp of pure reality. This is baffling; truly too good of news to be true. It is the Gospel.
In His unfathomable awareness of the real us, He bends over backwards to convey the real Him. His wish is that we not be fake and, furthermore, that we not perceive Him as unreal. God sees us all the way through to our best intentions...and, yes, even our worst. God knows our hearts. He gets the picture of who we are at our most sensitive whim of a thought whether godly or sinful.
When we go through the church motions, without an intimate confidence in God, our Christian walk is about six feet wide and one inch deep. In this mode we do our best to impress one another with our good deeds all-the-while knowing we aren't really cutting it. Our wish is strong. But our action often seems to be a bust.
So, don't you think that it helps us feel a bit more secure in Jesus when we become convinced that He already knows this about us? Read Romans 7. The mighty and profound apostle Paul spilled his beans. He said that he didn't do what he knew was good to do. And he didn't stop there. Paul continued that he did do what he wasn't supposed to do. Anyone relate so far?
His conclusion? OH. THANK. YOU. JESUS.
When we do not thank Jesus, we shift to an unspiritual state of living by comparison to one another. This is to enter the alley of untruth....every time. Oh sure, we know ourselves to fail in areas--several arenas--but we point out others of whom we deem as worse. This seems to tweak our conscience enough to spur us on through our religious and ritualistic terrain. But this perspective is a sham.
Unless we are convicted of our own sins--and not the sinfulness of others--we will continue to tote our Bibles off to Sunday School without believing them. We will simply go through the motions of which even unbelievers quickly detect are not the fulfillment of God's will. So, what shall we do?
It seems that we are off to a better start when we can grasp the reality that we are a mess, that God is the very One who points this out, and because of such, He redirects us to Jesus upon the Cross. God does not give up on us and we should not give up on others. Jesus died for our sins; not our slight missteps. He arose to convict us of personal inner relief; not some off-the-wall theory of being a do-gooder.
Our sins are deep and strong. Jesus' paying for our sins is deeper and stronger.
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