Verse: Colossians 1:21-23
21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
Thoughts
I can't live a perfect life, can you? I mean, it's not for lack of effort. I'd love to say that I could. But, honestly, I can't even live a perfect day. Think about that. If the average person lives 80 years, that's 29,200 days. That is almost 30K attempts at the perfect day. Google told me that 7.7 billion people live on earth right now. So just in the next 80 years there will be 231,000,000,000,000 tries for the perfect day. That's 231 quadrillion tries. I didn't even know that was a word. I had to look it up.
And no one will do it. Not even one. Not even on accident.
I'm not talking about a good day. I'm talking a perfect (or to borrow a biblical word) holy day.
That means no selfish behavior, no lustful thoughts, no greed, no manipulation, no pride. But it's not just stuff we wouldn't do, it's stuff we would do. The perfect, holy, day would mean loving everyone in our life, all day long, the way Jesus loves us. All of our words would be words seasoned with grace. All of our actions would be humble and sacrificial, looking to lift others up.
And that's just one day. Now go do that for a lifetime.
To have relationship with the perfect, holy God who dwells in "unapproachable light" (1 Timothy 6:16) because he is so holy, we must also be holy. The unholy simply can't exist in the presence of the truly holy.
Some people chafe at this idea. Why can't God just deal with it and be around our sin? I don't think it's about God being a stickler for rules. Like, "I could let you be here, but I made this rule and I'm sticking with it." No, I think it's more about reality. Like a human can't breathe under water. Or a goldfish can't be a tree. Or an ant can't drive a car. We can be mad all we want that we can't breathe under water, but that doesn't change reality.
We can be mad all we want that our sin breaks our relationship with our perfect Heavenly Father, that it prevents us from being in his presence, but it simply is reality. We can't change it. So God did. He sent Jesus. Jesus is our scuba gear. (stick with me here)
Jesus came down into the water we can't breathe and made a way for us to breathe. He drowned so we could survive. He gave us his breath, so we could live. And "now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." He made us holy. He made us able to be in the presence of God.
So now we can "approach God’s throne of grace with confidence" (Hebrews 4:16).
This is a long devo, sorry about that. But the point is this: praise God for making a way for us to be reconciled to him! This is the Good News!! He has done it! Praise God that he has made us holy! He has made us "without blemish and free from accusation." When we battle thoughts of self condemnation, let us remember the work of the cross! Jesus made a way, he paid it all, so we can be free. Now we don't have to live the perfect day, or the perfect life - because Jesus has made us perfect in his grace. Now it is not about what we do, but about what he has done. It is a free gift! Praise the Lord!
Prayer
Thank you Jesus. Today I start my day with gratitude. Thank you for paying the price for my sins, so I can be reconciled to you!