Our reaction to sin

Here's a little insert a young lady from church wrote on Facebook the other day.  I love it.

You can disappoint people and still be good enough. You can make mistakes and still be capable and talented. You can let people down and still be worthwhile and deserving of love. Everyone has disappointed someone they care about. Everyone messes up, lets people down and makes mistakes. Not because we are inadequate or fundamentally inept, but because we are imperfect and fundamentally human. But in God's eyes we are a perfect imperfection.
~Vanessa Jade

Sometimes we just feel worthless when we realise we've messed up - sometimes our reactions to people who do mess up is completely unacceptable because we make them feel worthless.

I love Ness' heart! I love the insight she gives here that we are all humans who all mess up, who initially actually are worthless but because of God's love and Christ's grace we are now a 'perfect imperfection' - someone who is still caught in world that is infected by sin, but has been made perfect and saved from the consequences of that sin. We as Christians need to remember that salvation when we interact with people we are aware are sinning.

Sin doesn't write you off from working on the mission of the church... if it did then none of us would be able to work on the Great Commission. Sin hinders our work yes, but Jesus' grace is greater - and it restores.  Let's remember that we are restorers... not tearers down.

LIVE IT! - Week 9

Well I preached the final sermon in the LIVE IT series a few weeks back now - but the next day I went on leave... so this blog post has been postponed a little.

I loved how Paul finished up his book with some practical pointer on how this whole message of the Gospel can infiltrate every aspect of our lives.

• If someone sins - that's not good, but it's not an opportunity to cut them down and kick them out... restore them gently.
• Look at yourself first - don't let yourself be sucked into sin. Keep away from all the temptations and emotions that lead to sin.
• Never hesitate to do good - the false teachers say you have to do things to earn salvation, but Paul says your salvation is free, so go do good things.
• Out of everything... the only thing that really matters is this... you have a new life - so don't go back to the old one.