You're going to blow it, and that's okay

Are you too hard on yourself?  I know I am.

I can demand more from myself than God does!

God never, no never, demands perfection from us.  How could He when He knows that we could never reach it?

That verse, "Be ye perfect as I am perfect" has been so grossly mistranslated and misinterpreted that it has led many into a tizzy or worse!  Perhaps it might have even caused some to give up on their faith altogether. After all, why bother with an unattainable goal?

However! The Greek translation of perfect in this verse is mature.  Be mature.  In other words, grow up!

That is something we can work on, pursue, and do by God's grace.

But during this maturing process, we will fail.  A lot.  Maybe even more than we succeed.

And you know what?  That's okay.  Really.

Old habits surface bringing out the worst in us.  Our flesh takes over instead of us allowing the Spirit to control us.  We just can't seem to get it together at times.  And that's okay.

Maybe no one ever gave you permission to blow it.  Sadly, the church can feed into this mentality.  Maybe, like me, you tend to hold yourself to impossible standards that not even God Himself holds us to!

To you I say, it's going to be alright.  God restores you the second you come to Him and ask His forgiveness.  

The conversation between you and God can go something like this:

"Lord, I blew it.  Again!"

"I know."

"Lord, I get so frustrated with myself, how I can still be so immature!"

"You are much too hard on yourself.  Let go.  Let's try again. I still love you and will never give up on you."

Jesus doesn’t chastise us when we come to Him in raw honesty.  I actually think He likes it. Why? Because we are turning to Him and not inward, or outwardly to someone or something else. We show that we trust Him.

Jesus cannot ever be surprised. Did you ever think about that?! He is all-knowing and He exists out of time. He has seen it all, everything we ever did and experienced, and He already sees what we will do in the future!  Otherwise how could He have told Peter that Peter would deny Him before the fact? 

Peter blew it. Big time. But he returned to Jesus and Jesus not only reinstated him, but made him the rock on which His entire church would be built!

Peter didn’t “deserve” Jesus’ grace and neither do we. Thank God it’s not about us and what we deserve!

Even the super apostle, Paul, blew it.  Hard to imagine, I know.  But thankfully, he was humble enough to admit his humanity in the above verse (Romans 7:15).  

So the next time me we blow it, let’s do an about face and simply turn to Jesus. No beating ourselves up. No denying that we blew it.  Just a simple, humble coming to Jesus to receive what we do not deserve: His loving grace, mercy, and understanding. 

Oh Lord.  You know beforehand all of the sins, mistakes, and goof-ups that we will commit.  And yet!  Yet You love us still.  You understand that we are but flesh.  And because You wore flesh for 33 years, though You never once sinned, You can relate to us on a human level.  You know the battles that we face within and without.  You know we are going to mess up.  Oh help us in our tendencies to be too hard on ourselves, that we may instead focus on growing up in You, in life, as Your children.  Remind us of Your great love for us, constant, steadfast, and eternal.  In Jesus' Name.  Amen.

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