The Point of the Cross

At different times, I've had people come to me and talk about how depressed and hopeless they feel in their faith. Their inability to "get it right" sometimes saddens them. They feel unclean, unworthy, like they're letting God down. And the phrase I hear a lot is, "I don't even feel like a Christian anymore."
I'm not being judgmental. I've been there, I've felt that, and said all those same things. Most of my life was spent in misery because I was reaching for perfection, and failing daily.
But as I've been thinking about it more recently, those thoughts and feelings shouldn't come into the mind of the Christian.
A friend of mine was feeling this way, and I just had to tell her, "Look, we aren't under the Law anymore." Wow! I need to practice what I preach on that one. But how much truth there is in that statement.
We are not under the Law anymore. The Law was in effect so that people could strive to sanctify and purify themselves before God. And what does Scripture say? No one could keep it. And God knew that. That's why He sent Jesus. We can't keep the Law, but God wanted us with Him, so He sent His Son to bring us home.
Don't make Christianity just a different or updated set of rules and regulations from the Old Testament. We will never be able to save ourselves. Never. "With man it is impossible." Absolutely impossible. Will not ever happen.
If the New Testament is just The Law 2.0, and we still have to sanctify ourselves, let me ask you this then: what was the point of the cross? Did Jesus die in vain? No one would dare say that. We know that our salvation was fulfilled at Calvary. So live it. Believe it. Put your faith in it. We're under grace, not law. Mercy, not self-sufficiency.
Once we grasp how sweet it is that our forgiveness is taken care of despite our deeds (though we still must accept the gift of grace), then we can start living for God as a response, a thanksgiving. Amen!

"I Need a Song..."

"I need a song..." Those were the words that I thought as I walked to my car only 40 minutes ago. After a long day, those were the words I could think to say to God. It was a good day. But there are still just things that confuse me, that I want to talk about with God. There are emotions about His forgiveness, there are pleas about His assitance, and I wanted a song to sing to Him to let Him know how I felt.
I rifled through the songs I knew quickly, but none could adequately describe all of how I felt. Then I realized that I don't need a song at all. God already knows.
His Spirit intercedes for me, forming the words I couldn't think of. My sighs turn into perfect clarity when the Spirit takes them to the Father. God already knew how I felt. He knew better than I even did.
About His forgiveness: it is. It is. It's there. I believe that He knows my heart, that He knows how sorry I am for sin, and how badly I want to change. I can't express that at times, but I know He knows. And I know He has grace to match every one of my sins. I know that He holds not one of them against me. Just this morning I was thinking about my inability to get things right. And I looked to God and wanted to cry out, "Why help me? You know my past; I'm never going to make it." And how amazing is it that God knows my past, sure, but He doesn't hold it against me. He keeps no record of wrongs. He doesn't condemn me.
Wow...
About His assistance: He will. He will. He will help me. I'm so weak; I feel like I'm messing up all the time. But His Spirit will always give me strength if I'll just look to Him. And when I fall, I trust that my Father is there to catch me. He wants me to strive towards perfection, though we both know I'll never reach it. He forgives my faults, but empowers me to move onward, to move upward.
What a Father! That I don't have to be afraid of my sin, or of my inabilities to "get it right" sometimes. Because He hasn't given me a spirit of fear, but one by which I can now cry Abba, Father.
And so, I don't have the words, but He puts them together for me. And so, I cry, "Abba. Father."

Worthiness

It's been another long day and I had way too much time to think this over, so get ready, because I'm about to preach.
Worthiness. Unworthiness. These are words I've been pretty familiar with in my personal life and in my spiritual life. I have always felt a little unworthy of being a boyfriend, a friend, a brother, a son, in different situations of my life. But I have ALWAYS felt unworthy of being a Christian, a child of God, a servant of the Master. And I have always vocalized that to my Father time and time again. I sin, and I feel unworthy to come before Him; unworthy to serve; unworthy to live for; unworthy to proclaim; unworthy to praise; unworthy; unworthy; unworthy.
But you know what I'm realizing now? Unworthiness is one of the stupidest things we can worry about when it comes to our relationship with God. Are we actually unworthy of Him? Of course! But you know what I believe He says about our feeling "unworthy"? I think He'd say, "I don't care."
People have told me that they feel unworthy of knowing me. What?! That's a ridiculous idea. I'm a sinner, a mess-up, an imperfect. I'm unworthy of them! But when someone close to me told me that, yes, I tried to explain that who am I to be high and mighty above anyone else, but the main thing that angered me was that they shouldn't feel unworthy of me because, regardless of mistakes or imperfections, I love them. And I am a firm believer that our relationships in this life teach us about our relationship with God, so I learned a lot from them telling me they were "unworthy."
I don't believe God cares about worthiness. He doesn't want me to gripe about unworthiness anymore. Because I'm unworthy, and I think He knows that, but He loves me! He forgives me! He keeps no record of wrongs! I am unworthy of having a relationship with Him, but He wants me to have one with me despite my flaws because He loves me, and His love is perfect.
I read once a chapter in a book discussing Jesus' analogy of Himself to a shepherd. And the author drew the lines that sheep don't worry about unworthiness. They don't worry about being presentable and "worthy" of being in the shepherd's flock, they just accept that he is their master, and they allow him to care for them. Jesus is our Shepherd. He wants us to accept Him as master and allow Him to care for us too.
No more talk about this "unworthiness," stop griping and making excuses! We are all unworthy. We are all sinners. But Christ took our sin and transferred His righteousness to us. If we are redeemed, God looks at us and sees Jesus' clean record, because Jesus took our dirty one. No more talk about this "unworthiness." Lift up your eyes to the Lord and praise His name. He loves you, and He desires to forgive you and dwell within your heart.
Take that, you idea of "unworthiness"!

"I'm here. I never left."

Today: phew. That's about all I can say.
I have been so challenged in my mind and heart lately and today just really weighed me down. I'm so lost and confused about the future, and I'm so troubled and left wondering about things in my life right now too! And today it all collided. And I really felt alone and hurt.
I was writing about it in class this morning. Sometimes I write my thoughts out, not because I want to be some great poet or anything, but it just helps me to organize my thoughts. And as I got to the end of one of the pages, I looked back over what I had written and realized that it was all about not being able to find joy out of things in the world, and needing God. And I just wondered where God could be in this time. And I wrote at the bottom of the page what I thought His response would be: "I'm here. I never left."
It took the rest of the day to really take that to heart. And it took then some more time to really come to Him about it. But I'm glad I did. I know He hears my heart, and He knows the struggles and confusions. But I know that He has grace to match it with. And that grace is what gives me joy and peace. Even when situations around me arise to bring misery, He meets me with joy and peace.
I don't know what will happen tomorrow. I can't understand some of the problems I'm facing today either. But I know that God knows. And I know that God cares.