"Lowest of All"

"Who remembered us in our low estate: for his mercy endureth for ever:" (Psalms 136:23)

  This is so hard! What was I thinking, and where did I think this was going to end up? I heard part of a message yesterday, it reminded me of something Pastor Mike said during communion service last Sunday morning; he said, "When I was younger, I thought that the older I got the less I would sin; but  now that I am older, I find it harder to quit sinning." The message was about Paul' reference to himself a couple of times in his epistles; the first reference he said, "I am the lowest of the Apostles," and his later reference was, "I am lowest of all the Saints." I don't really think that we sin more or anything like that, but the older we get, the closer we get to heaven, the more sin is evident and the more focused we are on not sinning. To put it into a simple illustration, we could imagine as if we are arriving at a train station from a long and exhausting train ride; up ahead in the station is someone waiting for us that care deeply about, and that we have not seen in a very long time; and the closer we get to them, the further we feel that we have been apart. I know that might seem like a stupid illustration to some, but the sin in our lives gets magnified the closer we get to holiness! I was very serious about the Beautifully Broken thing I said yesterday, because we must truly believe how much God loves us, just as we are! We might not understand why, or see the point of Him caring so much; but it is who He is, our Heavenly Father, and He loves us so very very much! This is actually a very good place to be, because the opposite of this is pride; as in, I am proud of who I am. Paul make a statement in the end of his letter to the Galatians, saying, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." He makes this very important statement after sharing about how much we need to help one another, by bearing one another's burdens; and that we must never be weary in well doing! The point of what that might look like, is that we do not look for a reward for the things we do for one another; because when we look to be rewarded, even if that is just acknowledgement of the good that we have done, then that in itself leads to pride! I know it's hard, but it requires us forgetting what if anything is owed to us, and not expecting anything in return; the reward for what you do is waiting for you in heaven; because anything you receive here is going to get burned up...

""Everything is meaningless," says the Teacher, "completely meaningless." (Ecclesiastes 12:8) NLT