Glory Seed Devotional’s, 2017: Anticipating and Experiencing Jehovah-Jireh...
We NEED God!
Shalom!
For a long time I have struggled with Roman’s chapter 3 verse 23. “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” (Romans 3:23, NLT) I know at one point in my life that described me but for some reason from time-to-time a soft whispering voice goes off inside me saying, “Gary, don’t think you’ve gotten past it because you haven’t.” Does that mean my years of walking the road of repentance has all been for nothing? Am I somehow condemned to spend eternity in hell? If what Paul wrote is true will there be anybody in heaven? And Jesus dying on the cross have I somehow canceled out His sacrifice for me? Is my brokenness is fixable how can I fix things with God?
Last evening while reading Good News for Those Who Try Harder by Alan Kraft in chapter 3 If It’s Broken, Fix It I read this paragraph and suddenly I began to understand some things about myself and what God is actually doing in me. “Apparently the road to hell actually is paved with good intentions—even good behaviors. Trying to be good is the absolute antithesis of living the gospel. Why? Because we cannot fix ourselves no matter how hard we try. The continual reality of the gospel is that we are broken, and we can’t do a thing to fix it. Trying hard to be good will never result in real transformation. All it does is drown out the music of the gospel.”
“The continual reality of the gospel is that we are broken, and we can’t do a thing to fix it.” As I write these words there’s that soft whispering voice again this time saying, “Gary, you are broken and you can’t fix yourself, but God can. You have fallen and only Jesus can pick you up.”
When we succumb to the reality that we are indeed broken and dump our self righteousness and our efforts to fix ourselves and with a broken spirit and contrite heart and turn to God we can hear the “music of the gospel” and part of the lyrics go like this. “Yet God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.” (Romans 3:24, NLT) Did you catch the good news? In case you didn’t catch it here’s the good news -- through our relationship with Jesus we are free from the penalty for our sins, Jesus exchanged his life for ours!
“So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”**
Grace and PEACE,
Gary
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“Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.”
Kraft, A. (2011). Good news for those trying harder. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook.
**Hebrews 4:16, NLT