L is for liar.
“Dear God, I’m sorry that I haven’t spent much time with you recently. I know that I haven’t really put in much of an effort, and I feel terrible about that.”
“Lord, I promise that I’m going to start doing things differently and really give you the time you deserve. I’m going to change, I promise.”
“I know I shouldn’t treat you like Santa, and only come to you when I need something. I’m sorry, God.”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve uttered these sentences while laying in bed, trying to pray but letting my thoughts about life and my day take the place of those prayers. I hardly tell people that I’ll pray for them anymore. I hardly open my Bible unless it’s for a class anymore. And every time I think about this, I feel awful and swear that things will start to change. And every day that things don’t change, I feel even worse…I feel like a failure, like a terrible Christian. I try to hide from God and convince myself that even though I don’t follow all the rules, I’m still doing pretty good. Today someone told me that that makes me a moralist. My first and abiding response is, “I’ll work on it, I’ll do better.” I believe my works can save me. But the truth is…works are a way not to see yourself.
The first human response to sin was to hide, to cover it up, to say things could change. Maybe it isn’t really my fault, then. Maybe I could blame it on Adam and Eve. But I keep looking at my sin or my response to the Word of God, and my first thought is to work on it, to work on how I respond. But there’s no God in there. I know that there is full forgiveness in the cross. When Christ died, He took my sin, but He also gave me His righteousness. He said, “There’s no condemnation now. I totally accept you.” If that’s true, then I don’t need to obey to feel accepted. I’m forgiven AND accepted; I don’t have to work harder to feel like I am.
Sometimes it gets so hard not to run to works. It gets hard not to run to doing a Bible study or being in fellowship, because we think those things prove that we love God and that we’re good Christians. It get’s so hard because I know the Biblical ideal, but I also know the reality of own life. I guess I need to start obeying in the light of trusting God and not trusting that fact that I can change and that I can do better.
