Meeting the standard
It looks like there is always a standard to be met in order to belong. If you want to be part of a certain club, you have to meet their membership standards. In order to attend X or Y university, you have to meet their academic standards. If you want to play for a Major League Baseball team, you have to meet the standard of a good professional baseball player.
There is a standard that all of us have failed to meet: giving God the place He deserves.
Since the beginning of creation, we have failed to recognize God as God. We have always played with the idea that we can be like God (Genesis 3:5). That was our first sin and is the source of all our sins. There is no need to mention any other, as rejecting God is more that enough to make us fail the standard.
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. – Romans 3:23
Sin separates us from the source of life and the result is death (Romans 6:23a). It is not a decision that God made for us, but that we ourselves made when we chose to become our own gods.
Fortunately, God has not given up on us. God made a way for us to meet the standard, but not on our own merits, which is impossible, but on the merits of His son Jesus.
You might think that even if this is true it will not work for you; there is no way that your life can change. Let me tell you a secret, I have been a follower of Jesus for a long time, and my life keeps falling short of God’s standard. I can try living a life that pleases Him because I love him, but I will still fail Him.
But, in Christ, the standard is satisfied and my relationship with God is fully restored, not because of me, but because of Jesus. The key here is “in Christ”. When a pregnant woman travels, she only has to pay for a single ticket. There is no need to pay for the unborn child because that child is “in her mother”. Likewise, the price has already been paid for those “in Christ”.
Jesus met the standard for you. You are only required to be “in Him”.
Comments
Meeting the standard — No Comments
HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>