Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – God gets rejected often not because He is not good, but because we perceive that He can not accept our badness.
Luke 5:8-9 NLT
[8] When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me-I’m such a sinful man.” [9] For he was awestruck by the number of fish they had caught, as were the others with him.
Observation
Jesus reveals himself through a miracle catch of fish and Peter’s response is the same as so many people “please leave me-I’m such a sinful man.” So often we reject God’s invitation to walk life with him based on our estimation of our goodness. We get that God is a holy God, we have an understanding that good and bad don’t mix, so we take our badness to be too much for His goodness. Self disqualification based on self scaled badness is one of the main reasons people give for not walking with God.
Outside of Jesus we would all sit disqualified, but Jesus came and dismantled ‘goodness’ as the bar to jump for acceptance. The new entry into right relationship with God established by Jesus is ‘personal accepted forgiveness.’ Jesus establishes forgiveness that covers everyone, every action, for all time, my acceptance of this established forgiveness in Jesus is now the only means to righteousness, to a right relationship with God. Those who attempt the worked goodness route find the bar too high, they are foolish in every attempt for their goodness to achieve acceptance. It is only through the forgiveness of Jesus that I am made perfect and from this place of perfectly right relationship with God my holiness, my walking in His ways, is worked out from the beauty and empowerment of His intimate presence. You see being in the Kingdom of God enables the kingdom to flow out of me. It’s an inside job.
In a world that judges me constantly, in a culture where my performance determines my acceptance, where bad is punished and disqualified and goodness gets the reward, it is difficult to live from another story, a story of gifted goodness, and attributed rightness. The story of ‘I didn’t earn it so it’s hard for it to be mine,’ is replaced by ‘I could never earn it so thank God He came and rescued me.’ This is not a degree in a corn flakes box, this right standing was expensive, but it’s an expense paid by another and gifted to you. God knows “I’m such a sinful man,” so he disqualified sin from disqualifying me, through the release of forgiveness through Him to me. Sin is discounted in the equation of right relationship with God to all who favour and receive His forgiveness.
Application
While I get Peter’s declaration I will never allow my emotions and the accuser’s voice of disqualification to keep me from walking with God. Whilst I do not rejoice in my ongoing sinfulness, I will never re-empower it to disqualify me from relationship. I hate its presence for it robs fullness of life, but it no longer robs fullness of relationship. Here is where I will rejoice in the presence of my sin, God has made me right with Him.
Response
Thank you for righteousness that depends on you and not me. Thank you that you have revealed the truth of your saving forgiveness to me in a way that shapes my life forever. Thank you that you make me right with you, that I may learn the right direction for life from the intimacy of walking alongside. I am blessed to live forgiven.
Meditation
How often do the words of Peter “I’m such a sinful man,” lead to feelings of disqualification?
Can you rejoice in the goodness of God in the face of your badness, knowing your righteousness in Him alone?
JOURNEY DEEPER
