I don’t know about you, but I tend to severely beat myself up when I fall short of the standard of Jesus. While I intellectually realize I can never achieve the level of devotion to God that He did, emotionally I am somewhat distraught when my actions do not match the desires of my heart. I can truly say with Paul that the very things I hate I end up doing, while the things I want to do I leave undone. Sometimes my relationship with Jesus looks more like a train wreck than anything else. I passionately love Him and am in awe of His holiness and love for me. I study and structure my life in ways that I believe put me in a place where I can best follow Him. Still, I fail and I fall like everyone else. I literally amaze myself that despite all my planning and preparation, I can still be led astray and not walk in His light. These are the days that end in prayers of desperation and pleading for Him to not let me wander from the path I know He would have me to walk. I believe we all have our “thorns of the flesh”, triggers that knock us off course. I think at this point I’d just like some new triggers to replace the old ones instead of always being tripped up by the same character flaws!
Thankfully, Jesus is patient beyond all our understanding. The One who told us to continually forgive those who sin against us, no matter how often they do so, forgives us in the same way. He sees our hearts and our devotion to Him. He loves us through our triumphs and our failures. The despondency I feel when I miss the mark is a great ploy of Satan. He wants nothing more than to convince us that we will never measure up so we may as well just stop trying. He attempts to sideline us by pointing to our failures and telling us that Christ can’t see past our sin to get to our hearts. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we must reject these lies in order to push past our failures and accept the forgiveness of Christ. We need to confess our sin and then let it go. We need to learn from our mistakes, but we need not dwell on them any longer than it takes to recognize them and repent. I have often found myself repeatedly confessing the same sin because I am so overwhelmed by my failure. Years ago I read an article in Keith Green’s Last Days magazine entitled “Dirty Linen in the Throne Room”. The gist was that Christ cleanses us, so that when we appear before Him we are washed clean. However, we refuse to recognize what He has done for us and instead see ourselves approaching Him in filthy rags. We have an identity crisis; we are listening to Satan’s lies about who we are rather than living in the reality of who we are in Christ.
I have often taken comfort over the years in the following lyrics from Margaret Becker’s amazing song, “Just Come In”:
You think you’ve crossed
Some sacred line
And now I will ignore you
If you look up
You will find
My heart is still toward you
Look at the sky
The east to the west
That’s where I threw this
When you first confessed
Let it go now
We need not beat ourselves up when we fail. Falling is a part of learning to walk. God loves us, skinned knees and all. We must never stop seeking Him and we must never cease our desire to live a life that looks like His. I will never understand why He loves us so much, despite our failures and our brokenness; but I will spend the rest of my days doing what I can to prove myself worthy of that love. I will get up again and again; I will not stay knocked down. My heart is toward Him and I will continue striving to live a life that is pleasing to Him and in a way that reflects His glory to everyone I meet. We are forgiven; we are empowered and we are clean. Walk in your true identity and reject the lies of Satan. We are cleansed and we are free. Live in His beauty.