In His Eyes
Have you ever felt like you were walking in circles and making no forward progress? Stuck on the endless cycle of a performance driven life, always having a sense that you should be doing more for God and even carrying a sense of guilt or that your somehow falling short of God’s expectations for your life.
Every religion is built on two ideas; God is not happy and we must perform certain things in order to please God. This leaves us with a human guilty conscience and the feeling of not being good enough and thinking “what must I do” to receive salvation from my situation or to receive a miracle.
This is how it was for the Priests of the Old Covenant who had to offer sacrifices for the sins of the people continually. The people were reminded every year of their sins so always carried a guilty conscious. The Law demanded “Perfect Righteousness” and if you missed one part of the law, then you were guilty of all. In the New Covenant our High Priest “Jesus” is seated at the right hand of Father because the work is finished! (Hebrews 10: 11-14)
Hebrews 10:1 For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices which they offer continually year after year, make those who approach perfect 2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers once purified would have had no more consciousness of sins. 3. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.
The purpose of the law was not meant to give us a standard of morality to live up to; it was given to reveal to us how sinful we are and that we cannot deal with our sin without the help of God.
Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
We thank God for the law, because the law reveals what sin is and that we cannot manage it by doing good works. The law reveals to us that we need a Savior! Once we come to Christ we are free from the law.
Galatians 3:21 Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. 22 But the scriptures has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23 But before faith came we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
God does not want us to live conscious (painfully aware of) of our sins and mistakes or we are no different than any other religion! He wants us to be conscious of our “salvation” and the “perfect work” Jesus did in us. As believers we are the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Of course it is obvious that we that we live in an imperfect world in bodies that have not yet been glorified and we know that our minds will at times deceive us into believing that we are out of step with who we are in Christ. With that being said it becomes very easy to understand that it is our spirits that have been perfected by the blood of Jesus and through Him alone we are righteous.
By Faith we can now remove the lie that we are unworthy and cast off that sense of guilt, and enter boldly to the very throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace to help us in our times of need, whether we “feel” good enough or not. Because we have made Jesus and what He did for us the center of our focus! (Hebrews 4:12)
Ephesians 1:6 To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved!
“accepted “ is the same Greek word that Gabriel spoke to Mary when he told her “you are Highly Favored” (Luke 1:28)
So when your mind condemns you, remind yourself that you are “dead to the law” the “binding customs of old” and are now alive to righteousness found only in Jesus Christ. You have a loving Father that has saved you and forgiven you of all your failures. In fact your Father looks at you as if you have never made any mistakes in your life at all. You are “Highly Favored” in His eyes!
