STANDARDS

Yesterday I found myself sliding into a funk because the day hadn't started the way I wanted it to. Our dog likes to start barking between 5 and 5:30AM and even though I like to get up around that time I've been out late in rehearsal with the community orchestra a couple times this week and I really wanted to sleep in. Nothing doing. I went downstairs and let him outside and then I tried to fall asleep on the sofa. Nothing doing. The dog kept scratching at the door. So I kept having to get up off the sofa and squirt him in the face with vinegar. That is our discipline aid right now. So I really didn't get back to sleep. I really want to get a citronella collar to curb this early morning and excessive barking.

Anyway, I was lazy all morning and didn't finally get a shower until almost 10. As I was in the shower, my usual place for deep thinking, I started to slide into this funk. What precipitated this mood? My disappointment in the circumstances of the day and my performance. This nebulous, legalistic, bondage-inducing standard I realize I hold myself to. It sneaks in and accuses me and more often than not I succumb to the guilt and sit down for the pity party. Well, yesterday, by the grace of God, I realized the danger in trying to keep this "standard". The only worthy standard out there is the perfect holiness of God. And I've already been told that I can never measure up to this - "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23. But here's where my spiritual amnesia kicks in - I keep forgetting to preach the gospel to myself on a daily basis. "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." 2 Corinthians 5:21 I've been rereading this book by Jerry Bridges called The Discipline of Grace. He quotes Robert Haldane who wrote these words about the righteousness of Christ ~

"To that righteousness is the eye of the believer ever to be directed; on that righteousness must he rest; on that righteousness must he live; on that righteousness must he die; in that righteousness must he appear before the judgment-seat; in that righteousness must he stand for ever in the presence of a righteous God."

Yes, the Bible does exhort us to be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:16). We are called to live by a high standard but not in the flesh. It is God who is at work in us to sanctify us and bring us to glory (Romans 8:28-30). We do not achieve this in the flesh. Yesterday the Lord lifted my eyes off myself, my performance, my circumstances and reminded me again where my focus should be. As John Piper states in Future Grace ~

"...live by faith in the hourly fellowship and performance of Jesus on our behalf...This is the promise of future grace-Christ living in me, with me and for me."