" Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long." ~ Psalm 25:4-5

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Jesus Wants The Losers

The moments i'm shown just how depraved I am are filled with anguish; but the thought of how good God's grace is toward me fills me with great hope. I remember the night of my conversion; the feeling of my total depravity weighed my soul down to the depths.

I spent most of my life believing I was a good person. After all, I never killed anyone or went to jail for a crime. But I had used the Lord's name in vain. I have loved myself more than anyone in this world, I have engaged in promiscuous heterosexual and homosexual acts, and I have ruined several friendships with my prideful attitude and anger that pervaded my heart. Some, if not all of these things may not look too bad. All of them in fact seem to be condoned in society today. I thought I was a pretty ok person when comparing my actions to the rest of the world's. My problem was that I was holding my actions in front of the wrong background.

When defining our own morality, anything goes so-to-speak. If we are our own authority, there are no true moral decisions; truth goes out the window and what we're left with is personal anarchy. I fell for the lie that I was the only one who mattered. I bought into the notion that my life was mine to live and that the goal in life was to be happy and whatever I had to do to accomplish that goal I was going to do it with no shame. I was wrong.

My life is not my own. It belongs to Christ Jesus. I was bought with a pretty steep price. I deserve hell for disobeying God; for deviating from the path he so clearly lined out for me. Instead of giving me what I deserved and what I wanted, which was hell, he gave me grace. That's the beauty and purity of the gospel.
I am so thankful God continues to remind me of my depravity; because repentance is not something that just happens the moment one becomes a Christian. Repentance is daily. The good news is just as Christ is sovereign in salvation, he is sovereign in sanctification as well.
"Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God." 1Corinthians 6:9-11

This has to be one of my favorite verses in the Bible. I love it so much because this truth trumps behavior modification. We did not wash ourselves so God would save us. He washed us. He chose us, washed us, and justified us. There is only hope in the Savior.