Dear Father, none of us is perfect, and I ask you to give us repentant hearts, that we may always recognize our desperate need for a Savior. Keep us humble that we may be servants and helpers without judging. Amen.
I recall memorizing the middle verse in this passage, Romans 3:23, in middle school. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Verse 23 is the eye opening message here. Upon reading this, every prideful or judgemental person should be knocked off their high horse to fall at the feet of Jesus. Every strong man or beautiful woman who thinks they are doing just fine on their own should beg for God's mercy and help. I'm not saying that I don't fit any of those personalities, beacause I certainly do. I tend to fall into a cycle of pride > helplessness > surrender > healing.
For now I'll focus on the "pride > helplessness" part. Really, we have nothing to be proud of. For every single personal achievement that you mention, there's dozens of shortcomings that you probably have tucked away in your memory, dying to be forgotten. The Bible says that even thinking hurtful or lustful thoughts about someone is sinning against them. Just because you do more good things than most people around you doesn't mean you're a decent person. You don't come close to being worthy of Jesus' attention, much less acceptance into his perfect home, heaven. Even more, you can't do a single thing about it. You might have finally held up a mirror to your life and realized that you need to change, but you can't do it. It's a life or death situation- be perfect or perish eternally- and there's no possible way you can rewrite your past mistakes and prevent any future ones. On your own, the situation is hopeless, but hold on, think about the second part of my cycle.
"Surrender > healing." Surrender? Surrender to whom? To sin and death? No actually, there is one more option to consider, and it's the option of rescue. That's right, there's someone out there who can pull you out of a hopeless, pointless life and give you hope and purpose. His name is Jesus. Jesus the Christ actually, "Christ" meaning "Messiah," an expected deliverer or leader of a cause. Well, we are the cause and he's here to lead us. In the first two stages of the cycle, we admitted our need for a leader, so surrender to Jesus and let him lead you! Jesus IS God, and he beat death, offering us a path to life. He erased our sins, took them upon himself, paid the price with a horrifying death, then rose again! By his wounds we are healed. Jesus came to heal and save us. All we have to do is trust that what Jesus did is real, say we're sorry and open our hearts to recieve forgiveness from God.
So, the truly amazing part of Romans 3:22-24 is not the middle, but the beginning and end. We are a fallen people, but we can have the righteousness of God. God loves the sinners so much that he sent Jesus to die. Think about that before you judge someone. God loves that child of his. Everybody's got certain sins that they have trouble dealing with, you and I are no exception. All we can do is pray that God puts a mirror in front of that person so he/she sees his/her sin and develops a desire to change, then allows the Holy Spirit to work in his/her heart. Our goodness is not our salvation, but rather a testimony to the world about how God has changed our lives. Be a light to the world, and pray for those lights that have grown dim, so that may set the whole world on fire for Jesus.
