We ALL fall short

Just a friendly reminder that we ✨ALL✨ fall short of the glory of God. Every single one of us.

No human being walking this earth can be truly and completely sinless. When you truly give your life to Christ, you don't get the same satisfaction from what is sinful as you did before you were transformed by Christ. And people who are true disciples of Jesus want to follow His commandments and His instructions for our lives. But you cannot be perfect.

Following the instructions of Jesus and the guidance of Holy Spirit will help you be more fruitful - kind, patient, selflessly loving, etc. But we ALL fall short of the glory of God.

If Paul - who had the most radical encounter with Jesus of all the Apostles, and knew the law better than most of his time - admitted that he was chief among sinners (1 Timothy 1), then who are we to think we could achieve any better?

And I'm not saying that Paul was perfect - in fact, I'm saying the opposite. Even a man as devoted as Paul still stumbled and struggled with his flesh. In Romans 7, he tells us that he is a wretched man stuck in a body of death; even though he wants to do good and do what is right, he still finds himself doing what is wrong.

Jesus was the ONLY human to walk this earth who was perfectly sinless. That's the whole point of His willing sacrifice. He was the only person to ever live who didn't deserve the punishment, and He took it upon Himself.

I'm on this tangent because of a recent video posted by John Bevere - it was a clip from his podcast, I believe. He's calling all believers to stop sinning because it's ruining their lives.

I think the message he was trying to convey was that people who claim to be believers and claim to be transformed by Christ need to stop their INTENTIONAL sinning. They need to stop WILLINGLY participating in things that they know are ultimately bad for them. He doesn't do a very good job of conveying that message.

I need to go watch the full-length video to see if he corrects himself beyond this clip. I'm hopeful that he does, because telling new believers they need to stop sinning sets an impossible set of expectations for them. We can stop being intentionally sinful, but that's it.

Jesus Himself says that people who make the little ones stumble (and I believe that He was speaking both of young children and new or "baby" Christians) would be better off with a millstone draped around their neck and jumping into the sea.

So yeah ....

Rant over.