So I’ve been down in the slumps lately. These past two weeks have been rough, not even because a lot has been going on, but quite the opposite. For this first part of summer, I haven’t had much structure to my days, and since I’m leaving now in two weeks for camp at Pine Cove, there haven’t been many job opportunities that are willing to have let me work for only the month that I’ve been here. Ergo, my mornings are usually spent sitting on my computer for hours, maybe watching a movie or playing some video games, and then my nights usually are spent hanging out with my good friends. I’m not saying that’s all bad, and granted I just spent a week in Austin with my good college friends, so my weeks haven’t been terribly boring. It’s just that I feel a little unproductive.
I have felt pretty distant from God lately. I haven’t been reading my Bible nearly as much as I should be. I feel pretty hopeless and drained almost every day.
However, in the great words of Brandon Heath in his song Wait and See, “there is hope for me yet.”
The great thing about our loving Father is that he didn’t send his Son for us so that we could work and work and work to receive salvation. His grace and mercy is so infinite that we are saved just by declaring Jesus as our Savior. What an unbelievable truth, huh?
So all of you out there that are feeling like your works are not enough, just let Ephesians 2:8-9 sink into your hearts:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
I’ve blogged about this passage before; it’s one of my favorite verses. It is just as much a truth now as it ever has been or will be. You have already been saved if you have asked Jesus into your heart. There is nothing else to keep you down.
The great thing about letting this verse be a theme verse of my life is knowing that I have nothing left to lose. Jesus is my King! He has already given me everything I will ever need to continue showing others his redeeming love. And along with that, I now have a hope and purpose in my life. I can go forward and know that the Lord is on my side in everything that I do, guiding me on a pathway to holiness.
So today, I have chosen to move forward and not let Satan slow me down. He will not keep me complacent or apathetic, but the Lord will be my strength in everything.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 3:12-14
