Good Enough

     “It’s out of my hands/it was from the start/in light of what you’ve done for me/in light of what you’ve done for me/You lifted my head/Set me apart/in light of what you’ve done for me/this is what You’ve done for me...There’s nothing in this world that I can offer, nothing I can stand upon/Apart from You/Apart from You/There’s nothing in my life...that You haven’t given to me...” Jars of Clay, “Out of My Hands.”

     There’s nothing that I can offer. Nothing I can stand upon. There is nothing in my life that God hasn’t given me. I try to do things on my own. I try and I try and I try, but nothing I do is ever good enough. My grades are never good enough. My ideas are never original enough. My good intentions aren’t good enough. I can never be nice enough. Never be smart enough, stylish enough, pretty enough, humble enough, generous enough, strong enough. I can never love enough. I can never be...enough. 

     There are pretty high standards laid on Christians. As a Christian, I’m supposed to be Christ-like. Have you read about Jesus? He’s practically Superhuman! Ok, he is God...but he’s also fully human. He expects us to follow him, to do as he did: tell people about him, forgive others-no matter who or what they did, love your enemies, don’t judge others, don’t gossip, murder (even in thought), lust or steal, honor your father and mother, leave everything to follow His will for your life, so on and so forth. I can’t. I can never live up to Jesus. He was perfect. I am...not. 

     I can get so discouraged thinking of all the things that I aught to be doing, that I feel like giving up altogether. I think of the standard that I should live up to, and it makes me afraid. Afraid to fail, to do something wrong, to try to help someone but make things worse; afraid to fall flat on my face. I can’t fail, can I? I am little miss perfect Christian. I can’t fall to the level of failure. That’s for other people. I don’t fail. If I don’t try, if I don’t step out of my little temperate bubble, then I won’t have to fail. If I stay to myself, if I wear wallpaper camouflage to blend in, if I do nothing to be noticed, maybe I’ll be ok. I can glide through life behind the scenes. If no one sees my failures, then maybe they never happened. Maybe God won’t see them. Because if He sees them, the jig is up, isn’t it? He’ll see that I’m a fake. I’m not a real Christian. I’m not Christ-like. I failed. In my pursuit of perfection, all I managed to do was hide my sin. I tried to be perfect. Tried to be good enough for God. I’m not.

     I have missed the whole point.

     The point is that I am imperfect. I am a Christian, and I am a mess...and I am a Christian because I am a mess. Not because I have it all together. Not because I have a 3.9-whatever GPA. I’m not getting any extra points with God for not drinking or smoking and coming home at a decent hour. “For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...(Romans 3:23, emphasis mine).” Then once I get this point, I tend to forget the rest of this verse: “...and are JUSTIFIED FREELY by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” We--including myself--have ALL SINNED, yet God, through His Son, knowing full well how pathetic we are, paid the penalty for us--for me--so that we could be forgiven. How simple this is. I have heard this all my life, yet I still struggle to understand. Where was I when pastors taught on the prodigal son (Luke15:11-31), or on the pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14)? Another time, when the religious Pharisees saw Jesus eating dinner with the “sinners,” they were upset with him. Jesus replied,

                                                               Luke 5:31-32

     “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” 

                                                     

He has not come to call the righteous. Christ knows that not one of us is righteous; therefore, he has called all of us to him. He loves me. He loves you. So much that because we are sinners, he died a horrible death, taking on the punishment for our sins--sins Jesus Christ never committed--so that we could be with him forever. If that is the kind of God we have, why are we hiding? Why am I hiding? David said of God,

                                                                 Psalm 139

     O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar...Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

                                                   

     There is nowhere we can hide. Our sins are painfully visible to Him. We cannot get rid of them on our own. I can’t put a band-aid on my failures; they go deeper than that. I need a complete heart transplant. Like Jesus said in Luke 5, he’s the doctor, and in this case, the surgeon. He specializes in heart transplants. 

     Because of Christ, I am free. 

                                                 John 8:34-36

      Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

                                                  

I am forever free from sin. Yet I still sin...so how can I be free from it? I still have to live like Christ; what am I to do about that? 

     The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians that if we live by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature (Gal. 5:16). “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want (5:17).” But if we allow the Spirit to work in us, we can be like Christ--avoiding sin, loving our Father (God) with everything we are, and loving everyone else as much as we love ourselves. For, “...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law (v. 22 & 23).” Christ wants to work in us to help us be more like him. We were never supposed to try to do it on our own. He wants us to have complete reliance on Him. We need Him to be saved from our sin, and we need His help to follow Him. We can do nothing on our own. In his life, Jesus was an example even of this:

John 5:19: “Jesus gave them this answer: ‘I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.’ ”

5:30: “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgement is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”

6:38: “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.”

8:28: “So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.’ ” 

If Jesus did nothing on his own but relied completely on the Holy Spirit, and we are supposed to follow his example, then why aren’t we? Why am I trying to stand on my own “strength” to attain perfection when God has given me His Spirit, the “mind of Christ,” which searches all things, even the deep things of God (1 Corin. 2:6-16)?

     I pray that I will stop relying on myself and let go and let God perfect me. He can do it; it’s about time I believe what He says.