Andrew HAD to have one. He promised every boy in the world had one. He promised he could not live without one. He promised it was the last thing he would ever ask for.
But in the end, it wasn't the aggrandized content of his promises that produced results. It was his persistence that drove me mad until I drove him across town to purchase the neon green fidget spinner he had spotted and obsessed over for a week.
As we walked hand in hand into the superstore with a motto as lofty as one of Andrew's promises ("Save Money. Live Better."), I spotted a thin man whose hair matched his faded white t-shirt. The phrase on the shirt made it stand out even more than the black bold font.
But in the end, it wasn't the aggrandized content of his promises that produced results. It was his persistence that drove me mad until I drove him across town to purchase the neon green fidget spinner he had spotted and obsessed over for a week.
As we walked hand in hand into the superstore with a motto as lofty as one of Andrew's promises ("Save Money. Live Better."), I spotted a thin man whose hair matched his faded white t-shirt. The phrase on the shirt made it stand out even more than the black bold font.
The shirt achieved it's intended...It shocked me a little. Part of me wanted to forsake proper social protocol, which limits interaction with strangers in superstore parking lots to brief eye contact and perfunctory smiles. Two instinctual reactions to his shirt lugged me toward him. I'm not sure which reaction would have taken precedence in our encounter had I actually approached him. I felt both angry and sorry for him that he felt so little remorse or conviction for what I imagined must be a grave amount of poor decision-making in his life. "Why else would he wear a shirt like this?" I predicted. But then I stopped in my tracks because I realized something...
His shirt was completely right.
His shirt was completely right.
And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Romans 3:22-24
I don't have to justify how I live. I can't!
No amount of good works, church attendance or religious talk will make me righteous before God. Yet He has offered me a gift that I could never earn on my own - His grace!
While His grace is free to me, it is not without great cost. The perfect Son of God suffered and died in my place to do what I could never do, justify my standing before a Holy God. Because of Jesus, my sins have been forgiven and my eternal rest secured.
Thank you God for Jesus. Help me to be more like Him so that others may see that whatever good is in me is because your grace has changed me and invited me to truly live.
I don't have to justify how I live. I live because I am justified!
No amount of good works, church attendance or religious talk will make me righteous before God. Yet He has offered me a gift that I could never earn on my own - His grace!
While His grace is free to me, it is not without great cost. The perfect Son of God suffered and died in my place to do what I could never do, justify my standing before a Holy God. Because of Jesus, my sins have been forgiven and my eternal rest secured.
Thank you God for Jesus. Help me to be more like Him so that others may see that whatever good is in me is because your grace has changed me and invited me to truly live.
I don't have to justify how I live. I live because I am justified!
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