What It's All About

We visited a new church today. They are young, and alive, and growing. They have a heart to see people changed; to reach the kids from the big public high school across the street. They want Jesus. And they want him to be know in our city. The thing is, they're not even from our city. They have a heart that longs for Chicago to know Jesus, and they're from Jacksonville, FL. Crazy calling, huh? Pretty awesome.


For them, it's all about Jesus. And that's for my life too. But I have to honestly say that I don't always spend every day making it about Jesus. It is so easy for me to focus on myself; what I want. One of the biggest challenges to me is:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Philippians 2:3

We all know how easy it is focus on ourselves. And you know what, Jesus knew it too. The Bible says that He faced every temptation that we do. He saw our self-centered world. Our self-centered, selfish, envious world killed Him.

And He still loved us.

And I definitely know how easy it is to fall into condemnation over not "doing better." It's so easy to feel like I've just messed up over and over, spending my day focusing on myself.

But you know what? Even when we focus on ourselves instead of Jesus, He forgives us. He's always ready to help us do better. But at the same time that He wants to transform us to look more like Him, His scale of us is not a performance once. Us being pleasing to him doesn't stipulate us spending our day perfectly. We mess up. And we're learning. And He knows that. He's part of us learning. We don't learn everything in one day; and He made us - He understands that.

So thank the Lord that when I mess up, shame and guilt are not for me. This is kind of the way I read the way the write of Lamentations 3 wrote it:

"I mess up.

My world is messed up.

Everyone's dying.

Everyone ignores God.

I feel deserted

I fight for every little thing I have every day.

My society, my people has turned their backs on God

I am sinful, I'm in the middle of so much trouble, people hate me...

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness."