SATURDAY
How can it be that I still sin, when I am a follower of Christ Jesus and have made tremendous leaps and bounds in my faith development?
I had my teens make Lent commitments two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday to carry out for the 40 days of Lent as a way to give something up for the sake of growing closer in our relationship with God. However after asking them how the first week of Lent went, quite a few teens owned up to breaking their commitments, such as drinking soda and energy drinks, eating chocolate and swearing at school, after only 1 week.
I heard discouragement and frustration in the voices of many teens unable to uphold their commitments. They were ready to throw in the towel if they hadn’t done so already. My response to them was: “So what? Start your Lent commitment again today. It’s never too late to continue on toward your goal.”
Devoted followers of God in the Bible had committed atrocious sins in the midst of their faith in God. Moses doubted that God could guide them into the promised land, David committed adultery, and Peter denied knowing Christ 3 times while using profanity and oaths on God’s name in order to lie his way out of being associated with Jesus. I say all this not to condone any sinful acts, but to illustrate that sin can creep its way back into our lives no matter what level we are at in our Christian faith.
Just because we fall into the trap of sin, doesn’t necessarily mean that we have trailed back to our pre-Christian state. What it means is that we failed in this one instance, we should learn from this failure, and continue on our path of living a life pleasing to the Lord.
Don’t let your failures/sins keep you from continually seeking to follow God, but DO use this momentary lapse as motivation to strengthen your relationship with God and find ways to show love and mercy to others in the same way that Christ has freely extended his love and mercy to us. Press on toward the goal of holiness, and daily ask God to help you overcome any oncoming temptation
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