“By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.”
I think these words above could be enough of a devotional for me today… wouldn’t you agree? The first verses of Romans 5 completely spoke to my heart as I prepared to write about Romans 5 for this Monday morning, and I can’t help but think that perhaps Jesus wanted to remind us that we are ENOUGH as we start off another new week.
I don’t know about you all, but I certainly do not have my act together 100% of the time. Scratch that… I don’t have my act together MOST of the time, and that fact is becoming more apparent the older I get! You see, for a while, I was really good at pretending that I had everything in my life tied up with a pretty little bow. I was good at saying “no” when my calendar got too full, but I avoided any reasons to let the world know that sometimes my house got messy, I wore yoga pants all day, or that I struggled with something much deeper than yoga pants. In fact, deep need to always be enough and to be perfect even began to impact my relationships. Often, I kept people in my life at arm’s length so that they would never know that I was not, in fact, perfect… that I struggled, that I doubted, that I became frustrated and angry and overwhelmed easier than I cared to admit. In case you were wondering, the very pursuit of being enough on my own left me lonely and feeling like anything BUT enough!
Friends, I’m convinced that the longer we run that race and try to reassure the entire planet that yes, we’re perfect, we’re enough, we have it all together all the time and can balance all the things without dropping the ball, the more we WILL begin to realize how false that is. As a result, we’ll realize our deep need for Jesus, because He is the only way we are enough. Yet, in a world that praises hustle over harmony and in a culture that believes one must be busy to be blessed, running that race to become enough seems to be what’s expected of us.
Let me step into your day really quickly (hopefully, before your busy start to your week begins) and remind you that there is another option available for us as children of God. All we have to do is slow down enough to see it and to take it. Read those first few verses of Romans 5 with me again today:
“By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.”
“…we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus.” Breathe that verse in as a sigh of relief this Monday and picture yourself throwing open those doors to invite God into your week, only to find that He has already thrown open the doors for us, just as those verses above say. This week, you can start off “out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory…” THAT is what Jesus offers to us. With Him, you are enough.
Happy Monday, indeed. 🙂