And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. (Colossians 2:6-7 NLT) One who follows must do so continually, otherwise they will end up lost, off-course, and a little disoriented. As many times as we 'start well', do we 'finish well'? Not likely - many 'courses of action' stand abandoned over the course of time because it was too hard, too boring, or just didn't produce what we hoped to see when we took that particular course. The 'right course', started out 'well', won't produce the 'best' end results until we commit to the process of seeing it through! Roots take a while to develop, but once they are established it is hard for the tree to die. Case in point - I had a diseased tree in the backyard that had been th...
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. (Romans 3:23-24 NLT) We might not want to admit it, but we are sinners through and through. We were born with the sin nature - it is part of who we are. We give into it almost unconsciously at times, don't we? We listen to its lies and believe whatever 'feels best' at the moment, all the while ignoring the warning flags deep within our spirit that are telling us to act otherwise. Everyone has sinned, is a sinner, falling short of God's standards for living - in need of a 'life altering change' that can only come by saying yes to Jesus. God's grace comes to us without us even asking for it - offered to us in ways we might not even realize as God reaching out to us. Grace comes in the form of protection from serious harm when we choose to do dumb stuff...