History has proven time and time again the fallibility of humanity. We fail countless times and it seems we find new ways to fail every day. It's in our nature to learn from trial and error, but if we counted all of our errors, we would be staring at a very intimidating list of just how much we fall short.
Some people have a hard time coping with failure, myself included. After making many big mistakes in college, I made those things my identity. The condemning voices in my head were o loud I honestly couldn't tell you I they were things people actually told me or if it was purely in my head. That's how vivid and relentless these accusations felt. I let the guilt and shame of my failure consume me to the point where that was all that was left of me.
And I'm probably not the only one who has felt this way.
Failure is a part of life, so how do we deal with ourselves when we will inevitably fall short?
In the first few chapters of Romans, it feels a lot like Paul is putting salt in the open wounds of our blatant humanity. He tells us that if you have the law, you'll be condemned, and if you don't have the law, you will fall into sin.
So how can we possibly be saved from our own humanity if no matter what we do, we are going to fail?
But that's just it. We can't do anything, and that's exactly the point!
We can never possibly measure up to God based on our own works. So we have to take the focus off of what we can do and put it on what God can do. We must come to terms with the fact that as a member of the human race, we are subject to the brokenness of the world. This is why we cannot trust ourselves, or even other humans, to release us from this broken state.
That can only be done through God.
God created us to be ni union with Him. He desires a relationship with each of us because that is how we escape the bondage of the world. If we submit ourselves to Him and walk in His ways, He will give us life more abundantly. A life where we don't have to worry about what we must do to be said, but a life where we can just be saved because we believe we are loved by God and we live in that identity.
This is the hope of the gospel. You don't have to try so hard to get God's approval. You just have to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart and simply walk with Him in the path of life.
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