Weather Report From Heaven: Sunny and bright, with an abundance of light and lots of singing and rejoicing.
Scripture- “If you love me, keep my commands.” – John 14:15
Insight: We say we trust Jesus, but do our actions align with our words? One of the things I struggle with in my faith, and I am sure I am not alone, is making sure my actions align with my pronouncements of faith. Do I do what I say I believe? Do I trust in Him and him alone, regardless of how counter-cultural those beliefs may be or how unpopular that may make me at certain times in my life? Do I stand up for my beliefs? Well, the honest answer is as much as I would like to, and as much as I try to, I sometimes still come up woefully short. But this really shouldn’t serve as a huge surprise or discouragement because even His disciples who walked with him day and night for 3 years struggled with this aspect of their faith. Many times, they just couldn’t get their actions to align with their words. One of the most famous instances of this occurring in the Bible is Peter denying he knew Jesus 3 times in the courtyard after proclaiming in Luke 22:33 that “ I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.” After this episode, Peter was broken beyond all compare. Imagine the guilt ad shame he must have felt for his abandonment of Jesus at the most crucial time. But this didn’t dis-qualify Peter from being used mightily by Jesus and in fact, Jesus not only later restored Peter but He made him the foundation on which he built the early church.
This should remind us of something so critical in our own faith walk; Jesus does not expect nor demand perfection from us in our faith. In fact, He knows just how fragile we are. That is why His forgiveness knows no limits. He knows when we accept Him as Savior, we won’t stop sinning, although hopefully we do sin less. I have made a mess many times of not being bold enough in my faith before others, not being concise enough in my defense of the Gospel, not being 100% committed to following all His commands. But this doesn’t make me a bad Christian or disqualify me from following Jesus. It makes me human! We struggle in our fleshly bodies and always will until the day we get to escape these fleshly tents and meet Jesus face to face. Until then, we shouldn’t carry heavy burdens when we make mistakes in our faith by our actions not aligning with our words. We should keep in mind that Jesus doesn’t keep a scorecard of our wrongs, He keeps an unlimited amount of forgiveness and restoration, forgiveness and grace for those who call on Him as their Lord and Savior.
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