I’ve recently been beating myself up over my failures-in my ministry as a Christian, in my lack of personal holiness, in my choosing sin over Jesus too often. But God reminded me this morning to basically “get over myself” in the most tender way possible. It’s funny how what can seem like humility in looking at my failures is actually prideful. I’ve gotten so caught up in my successes and failures as a Christian, that I have forgotten what the Gospel is really about.

God didn’t send his son Jesus to die so that we could be better people. That’s religion.

What really happened is that we decided we didn’t need God anymore, so we abandoned that relationship with Him. Then we realized that was a big mistake and we missed God and that relationship. It was perfect, satisfying, fulfilling, pure. But we left God and sinned against Him and there was no way to get back to that perfect relationship.

Insert Jesus.

Out of His perfect and eternal love, God sent Jesus to live the life we weren’t able to live, and then died the death we deserved to die so that we could have a relationship with God again. I think about that and realize I have no part in that other than the part where I sinned against God.

In 1 Timothy 1: 13-14 Paul says “…Yet I was shown mercy BECAUSE of I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.” (emphasis mine) Christianity isn’t about being a good person, rather it’s quite the opposite. Jesus died because of my badness and then freely let me share in his inheritance of the Kingdom of God so I can spend the rest of life and eternity knowing God.

Don’t get me wrong, part of the Christian walk is about being sanctified and becoming more like Jesus over time, which obviously would make me a better person, but that wasn’t God’s sole reason for saving us. And when sanctification becomes the main focus in your life (as I was doing as I focused on my failures) it’s easy to forget about redemption and grace and living by faith instead of works.

Oswald Chambers says it best: “As workers, we have to get used to the revelation that redemption is the only reality. Personal holiness is an effect of redemption, not the cause of it. If we place our faith in human goodness we will go under when testing comes.”

Focusing on my failures is a waste of time. I can’t fail by my own merits because I can’t succeed by my own merits. It’s not about what I do, but what Jesus has already done for me. So my first response to the gospel is to accept God’s grace. Any other option would just be offending to God.