God says that He has a plan and a purpose for my life to give me hope and a future.
So naturally, I do the opposite of that plan and whip up my own plan instead. Currently, my plans are up to about a 0% success rate.
I know that I’m a follower of Jesus and I’m saved by grace through faith in Him alone. But even though God shows me His goodness, I still sin and make mistakes.
Instead of going to God, I try to earn God’s grace by doing little things that I think make me more righteous or holy. And just like that, I’ve taken my eyes off of Jesus and onto myself.
And when I do, I start to doubt my identity as a child of God.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked myself that question. Maybe you’ve asked yourself that, too. Why do I still find myself falling into sin even after I started following Jesus?
Satan loves to tell us that we aren’t good enough. And we’re quick to believe it. Because really, we’re not good enough on our own to earn salvation. Before we knew Jesus, we were never worthy of His grace. And even though I’ve accepted God’s grace, I’ll never be worthy of it.
But that’s why we call it Amazing grace, not Mediocre grace.
Romans 5:8 says that Christ died for us while we were still sinners because of His goodness. But Satan wants us to focus on our flaws, because it takes our focus off of God’s goodness. Then we start to question our identity as God’s children.
He did the same thing to Jesus in Luke 4:3.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
He essentially tells Jesus “If you are the Son of God…then prove it!” Satan is evil, but he’s not stupid. He’s not trying to pick a fight with Jesus. That would be a bad idea for old Satan.
Instead, he wants Jesus to lose before the fight even starts by getting Him to question His identity.
Jesus absolutely could have turned a stone into bread. But to do so would have been so that Jesus could prove His identity to others. Instead, Jesus fights back with Scripture. He knows that He doesn’t have to prove himself to others, because He has His Father’s approval.
A father doesn’t care about the snot on his children’s faces when they give him a kiss. He smiles, leans down, and embraces them, snot and all.
God says that if we accept His grace and repent from our sin, He adopts us into His family. We no longer have to worry about being good enough for God, because we’re adopted into His goodness. His love and grace covers us so that we can embrace Him as our Father.
You might not be where you want to be yet in your walk with God. I’m certainly not. But we can still embrace who we are today as we also grow into the person God wants us to become.
Because when God sees you, He doesn’t see a screw-up.
He sees the child that He came to save. When you follow Jesus, He doesn’t push you away because of your flaws.
He smiles, leans down, and embraces you, imperfections and all.
