Why does the earth spin? For Him. Why do you have talents and abilities? For Him. Why do you have money or poverty? For Him. Strength or struggle? For Him. Everything and everyone was exists to reveal His glory! Including you.
It’s Not About Me, Max Lucado

I got some much needed re-adjusting yesterday. This book was exactly what I needed to be reading. Then I got an email (Hell’s Best Kept Secret; YOUTUBE) explaining the parable of the rich young ruler. Jesus wasn’t very inviting to this man that questioned him about inheriting eternal life and I’ve pondered why. Jesus didn’t tell him any of the “good” stuff-He didn’t say, “you can have peace and hope and deliverance… instead He first questioned the mans understanding of ‘good’, then showed him the 10 commandments, then gave him a really difficult command: “sell all you have and give it to the poor and then come and follow me.” The man walked away saddened. Jesus was attempting to show the man that with his own ability, upon his own merit, with his own strength and goodness, he himself would be unable to meet the qualifications for eternal life. We can never be saved as long as we have this, “I’ve done all that stuff right since I was young, I’m a good person” mentality. Salvation requires a breaking down of that mentality; a realization that, “Hey, I am a mess and I need help. I am not good, I am not worthy of God’s goodness in my life, much less eternal life. I deserve death.” We must be convinced of the law as sinners. James chapter two is an attempt to show this very thing. Verse 10 tells us, ”For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” Romans 3:20 says is wonderfully, “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin”. The law places the bar so high.. even unto perfection… and when we gaze into that law we are able to see just how far we miss the mark. Ironically, the closer we think we are to accomplishing such goodness just shows the reality that we are lightyears away from it! And when we gaze at the law and the standard of perfection with frustration and a feelings that we are a great big mess and can never, ever attain unto it.. and it is then that we are getting much closer!! That’s why our joy needs to become mourning and our laughter to weeping. Godly sorrow worketh repentence but the sorrow of the world worketh death. (II Corinthians 7:9-11) How is it that I can become so off course? Because God’s thoughts are not my thoughts.. our basic mentality is wrong. “Stinking thinking”, as one preacher put it. I am just amazed at how I manage to mess up mentally; at how I keep managing to put myself in the limelight: my wants and needs, my happiness and acceptance, my “goodness”, instead of the real truth. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. It is all about Him. His will, His plan, His timing. His Glory!! How liberating it is to let your joy, all the feelings you have for how “good” and “righteous” you think you are, become instead a realization of the huge mess you are… only to realize the awesomeness of God. How huge He is!!! How capable!!! He is making something amazing out of a pile of worthless dirt!! I can’t, but He CAN!!! I’m nothing, but He is everything!!!
We know that the law is spiritual. But I am not spiritual. Sin rules me like I am its slave. I don’t understand the things I do. I don’t do the good things I want to do. And I do the bad things I hate to do. And if I don’t want to do the bad things I do, then that means that I agree that the law is good. But I am not really the one doing these bad things. It is sin living in me that does these things. Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me-I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do the things that are good. But I don’t do those things. I don’t do the good things that I want to do. I do the bad things that I don’t want to do. So if I do things I don’t want to do, then it is not really me doing those things. It is sin living in me that does those bad things. So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. In my mind, I am happy with God’s law. But I see another law working in my body. That law makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and that law makes me its prisoner. This is terrible!! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? God will save me! I thank him for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law. But in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin. Romans 7:14-25; Easy-to-Read version.
So we then come around full circle: trading “our” joy for heaviness, our laughter for mourning, sorrow unto repentence and then we get His joy and His peace and His hope and His life. Trade our junk for His riches!! What an exchange!! Imagine to trade something temporary, something “fake”, something counterfeit for something REAL and eternally valuable!!
It’s been a real struggle for me lately. We moved our family to South Florida thinking we’d find fellowship here; we’d meet Christian families, we’d be a positive impact for God in the lives of people who did not know Him intimately. It was a new start, a fresh beginning in a new and beautiful place. I did not imagine the lonliness that I would experience, the hardness of heart that I’d find. And the disappointment in myself that I would still mess so many things up. You know, I’ve almost 38 years old. I’ve been serving the Lord for 18 years.. and still I find my reactions are 90% of the time not what they should be. 9 situations out of 10 I do the wrong thing, I say the wrong thing, my mentality is wrong. My kids still are not perfect. I still find myself questioning whether they’ll be “smart” enough to survive in the real world. They still seem to keen to copy my every personality flaw. Make my every mistake… but never seem to pick up on the “good” stuff. Huh…. IS THERE any “good” stuff??? We get weary in the flesh, don’t we? We manage to get our self, our emotions, our needs right in center stage. I do anyway. And I thank the Lord that as I was dusting the shelf I spotted this book by Max Lucado once again and picked it up and opened it weeks later. When I have started and stalled on this web-site so many times feeling like I am unqualified to talk to anyone about anything until I can get it all together for myself. Guess what, that’s never going to happen. You know, the kids watched yesterday a show on TV where they took unattractive, shy, quiet girl for 9 weeks and changed her from the inside out. This same girl was voted Homecoming Queen. It was the same old Cinderella story, yet amazing and exciting to watch again. God can take the person who is voted least likely to succeed, the person who is such a mess, so far from “perfect” and turn them upside down for Him. He did it to Saul of Tarsus, and He still does it today.
So, the message is this: I need the Lord. Desperately. Without Him, I would mess up within the hour. I would go the wrong way, do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, think the wrong thoughts. And that’s what we ALL do when He isn’t the very center of our lives. And the thing is that when we think we are okay is when we are far from okay.
Everything I do right, it is by the grace and help of the Lord. It’s not all about me.. or you. It doesn’t matter what we think about it. It matters what God thinks about it. And what He thinks is written in His word. Just like the moon, I have some major flaws. You don’t have to look to close to find them… I, in myself, have no “light”. No glory. But my job is to be a reflection of God’s light , of His glory. “Lord, show me your glory. Change my heart O God, make it ever true. Change my heart, O God, may I be like you. You are the potter and I am the clay; mold me and make me, this is what I pray. Let me not be like the man beholding himself in the mirror that goes his way and soon forgets what he saw there. In Jesus wonderful, powerful, glorious, mighty and precious name. AMEN.