My hubby was asked to drive a large company truck to Alabama years ago before he retired.
Now I had ridden with him in the past, and I know first hand how difficult it can be to park the mammoth vehicle, it doesn’t just turn on a dime.
With this in mind, plus the long drive ahead of him, I decided to put together a special take along for his convenience. I sacrificed my travel cooler and began to pack it so that he could easily retrieve water, food, and chips along the way. I had made him some breakfast tacos, cookies and a couple of sandwiches. I really tried to think ahead for his comfort/convenience.
About an hour after he left I opened the fridge and saw the tacos that I had forgotten to pack! I could have kicked myself. I knew he had more than enough food, and of course there were places he could stop but I was trying to plan ahead, and to make it easier for him.
For a few moments I allowed myself to feel bad about this, until the Lord created a picture in my heart, and used it as an example.
He said, “This is how it is when a New Testament believer falls back under the Old Testament law. You can do 99 things right but the law will always find the one thing you did wrong and focus on that. It will never point out all those things you did right.”
The Bible states if you are guilty of breaking one law, then you become guilty of all! If you sin in one area, you become guilty of all.
So what does a person do?
You admit complete defeat from the beginning, and put your faith in Jesus’s righteousness to cover your own unrighteousness. You accept this by trusting in His goodness and grace.
And from that day forward as you received salvation through faith, in His grace that’s how you continue your relationship with God.
So instead of focusing on our faults, we should focus on Jesus and who we are now in Christ.
Otherwise, you will live a frustrated Christian life. Trying to earn God’s favor and blessing. What do “I” need to do? Forgetting how you were born again in the first place.
Believe me, I’ve been there, it’s tough!! And it will keep you from fully receiving and experiencing all that God has for you or others through you because faith works through love.
And if your not fully confident in God’s love for you, it will cause doubt and fear to come upon you.
Living with a law mentality will constantly bring us under condemnation, when there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
Now, if we do something wrong and we know it was wrong, we should feel guilty about it. But God is not the one condemning us. The enemy will take advantage of us, (he walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour), and people will condemn us over it, but God will not break His fellowship with us.
So when I mess up, as soon as I realize it I am quick to repent, run to my Heavenly Father and confess it, “Lord, I know that was a stupid thing I did (or said), I was wrong, your way is right but I know you will never stop loving me, so I receive your forgiveness now.” And I get right back in fellowship with Him. I don’t have to get that sin under the blood again and Jesus doesn’t have to pay for it again. “For the death that He died, He died to sin ONCE FOR ALL; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”
So many people are trying to get it all right, and straighten out their lives before they come to Christ. But the truth is, every day we are going to forget to pack something or make choices to pack the wrong things in our coolers. We need to empty out our hearts and fill them with Jesus/His word. He has a perfect plan for every persons life and we receive it by grace.
“You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.”
“For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.”
“And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”
(Book of Romans; Gal. 5:4; Col. 2:5-7;John 1:16-18; James 2:10)
Contact Brenda Groves at: bkgroves1996@yahoo.com
