It’s a weighty thing to letdown the God of the Universe. Yet we do it every day. Of course, God in His infinite, unsurpassable, incomprehensible love would never tell us we let Him down. But we know it. We know it in our bones. We know it in our souls. We know it in our hearts. We let Him down. We failed Him. We acted in a way unbecoming of a child of the King. And we’ll do it again.
The moments following a letdown are sobering and strangely clarifying. We see what we should have done and what we did not. We become aware of an opportunity missed, never again to be revisited. And we’ll do it again. How can this be so?
Jesus died on the cross for us. We say and hear it so often I’m not sure we feel the gravity. This man, God, in the form of one of us, feeling as we feel, was nailed to a cross. The cross was then stood up in the ground, ripping the flesh from His hands and feet. That’s not to mention the rough wood digging into an already raw back that had been stripped of flesh with whips tipped with shards of glass and metal. He had a spear shoved in His side. And then He slowly suffocated. He did this for us. We only give consideration to this perhaps once a year during Easter when we watch “The Passion” or some other Easter movie or program. Sometimes it even seems real for us in those moments, but it’s not real for us throughout the year. Our creator died in our place. He suffered torture for us, in our stead. That should have been us under the whip. It should have been us up on the cross. Yet we are so quick to deny Him by the way we live.
What’s wrong with us? Where else do you see allegiances pledged and so quickly disregarded? Oh, we’ll follow Him, whatever the cost, but we can’t even go twenty-four hours without letting Him down. Are you kidding me? How can we respond other than to throw ourselves on our faces? How can we respond but to beg for mercy? Perhaps it’s because we know the mercy will come. But Judgement will come as well. I don’t want to face Jesus with a string of letdowns in my past. It’s got to stop. We’ve got to change. We’ve got to live differently. We’ve got to reflect Him to a world that is desperate for His love, forgiveness, and salvation.
It feels like I’m saying it more and more these days, but time is running out. We act as if there will always be a tomorrow to change, to live better, to do more for Him. We don’t know that. All we have are these moments. We have this moment now, we have the next moment when we will face temptation, and we have the moment after that when we decide if we will let Him down or if we will serve Him. That’s it. It’s a simple choice, and one we make tens and probably hundreds of times each day. How many times do we choose Him?
It’s tiring. Every disciplined, God-honoring choice we make takes a little something out of us. But do you really think it takes as much out of us as the cross took out of Him? Come on. We are weak. We are undeserving. And yet He still pours out His love on us. He reaches out His hand to us. He picks us up every time we fall. Aren’t you getting tired of it? Wouldn’t you rather walk beside Him than have Him constantly picking you up? It’s our choice. We can decide to live differently. The only question is, will we?