Stumble

So, I write about anger and add a pious comment about being done with its insidious effects. And as life would have it, my buttons get pushed again. But this time I fail. I reply in an unkind manner and a co-worker watches and comments on the unexpected behavior.

Arg. All this happens the day before I print the “Bike Path” devotional to post copies at work near the time clock.

And how is that like my life?

First, it’s just like in Romans 7, verses 14-18, “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

Second, we’re called to be humble not braggadocios. “But, ‘Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.’ For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends,” says 2 Corinthians 10, verses 17-18. Instead of boasting about our own actions, we should boast about God’s grace that overcomes our sinful nature. That’s an attitude the Lord can commend.

Finally, we’re saved by grace. As believers in Jesus Christ, we may stumble but we won’t be shamed. Romans 9, verse 33 says, “As it is written: ‘See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’”

No one can keep the law. It’s impossible on our own. That’s why when we boast it should be in what the Lord has done for us. And when we trust in Jesus, even if we stumble, we don’t have to wear shame. 1 Peter 4, verse 11 says, “... If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.”

Amen.


Gifted Quill Devotional
By Nancy Lucas
415 words
October 23, 2006