Day 2591 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.
Romans 3:12 NIV
There's just something about the books of Romans that hits closer to home for me. I don't know if it's the way that it's written. Maybe it's all of the wisdom and truth and powerful lessons that it holds. Or perhaps that it's written by someone that I feel this connection with for some reason. But whatever it is, whenever I come around to reading the book it just hits differently.
I'll be the first to admit that I think a little differently than most. The majority of people want to hear that they're doing good. They want people to pat them on the back for whatever they manage to accomplish. They want to be praised for their work and have their failures and flaws ignored. Me personally, I'm just about the opposite. I want to know what I'm doing wrong. I want to hear what I can improve. And I don't want any praise or applause or approval because I just don't deserve any.
Maybe that's why I love Romans so much. It just doesn't shy away from saying what needs to be said. I appreciate that. We all should. We should appreciate messages like this one in chapter 3. The fact is that we gain nothing by ignoring the truth. We gain nothing when we avoid the weaknesses we have. We gain nothing by only looking at what makes us feel good and only paying attention to the positive side of things. As much as it may hurt, sometimes we have to get down in the dirt and realize how far we've gone in the wrong direction.
The fact is that none of us are perfect. None of us are even good. Even Jesus asks why people call Him good in Mark 10:18. Humanity is not good. A long time ago, a rule was broken that invited sin into our lives, and rather than learning our lesson from that mistake, we’ve chosen to ignore it and make doing wrong our goal ever since. We didn't stop at eating an apple. That was just a starting point. We're to the point where we have to keep finding new ways to be depraved because the old ways are just boring. Our world is constantly inventing new ways to do wrong, and each of us have played along.
Problem is that it's all made to look perfectly fine. We ignore the guilt that we feel because it doesn't make us feel good. We shy away from the shame because it reminds us we've done something wrong. We just want to stay lost in this man-made illusion that affords us the comfort of ignoring what hurts so we can more fully enjoy the filthy pleasure that sin offers us. But eventually the fun and games will end and the truth we've spent so long avoiding will be unavoidable.
That's why we need to just bite the bullet now. Look at what makes you realize how much you need to fix. Admit what you've messed up. Be honest with yourself so that you don't face that feeling of impending doom when the inevitable has arrived. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna be embarrassing. Nothing fun about it. But pain means we're growing. And that sting of guilt and shame means that we can see what we've done wrong. And being able to see that we've been living wrong is the first step to making the changes necessary to start living better.
Nobody will ever attain this ideal that humanity has dreamed up. And to be honest, it's a little weird that humanity is so consumed with the idea of perfection when we've fallen so far. But anyway, perfection just isn't in the cards. But improvement is. Growth is. Changes are. We can learn from our mistakes but only when we admit that we've made them. If we don't, then we'll just keep doing what we've always done under the foolish assumption that it's all okay.
We have to stop running away from the fact that we're a far cry from what we try to convince ourselves. We're nowhere near as good as we claim to be. We're only fooling ourselves and preventing any and all improvement by pretending that we're better than we are. Don't do that to yourself. It's a dangerous game to think we can somehow get by with doing whatever we want to do all while avoiding what God has said is right and wrong. We can't. And at some point, that fact will be realized in all of our lives.
Let that point be today now so there's still time to do something about what you've done wrong. Don't leave it too late to change things.
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