Why is it so easy to be so introspective and self-abasing? Why do we struggle not only believing the Gospel but living in the grace that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has provided? Jesus died to make us right with God. There is nothing we can do that adds to the righteousness found in the Gospel and there is nothing we can do to take anything from it. (Romans 3:21-26)
Martin Luther is helpful when he writes:
"This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified."
I woke up this morning thinking about a verse found in 2 Peter 1:3:
"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." NIV
God has given us EVERYTHING we need. That means we lack nothing of what really matters and we do not lack the things that are necessary for real life! He truly has given us everything we need.
What has He given us? He has given us the promise of eternal life. He has given has the Lord Jesus, our Savior, our King, the best friend we could ever have! He has given us His word which provides lasting peace & real joy. He has given us the Holy Spirit. He has given us the Church, He has given us "one another." What else do we really need? How we answer that may help each of us answer my first question of why we are so restlessly introspective and self-abasing.
I can relate to the old hymn that says:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
