System Failure

I am horrible with computers. Give me 10 minutes in the "control panel" and I will screw it up, trust me. I kind of like them, they serve a purpose, and I can get around fairly well, but I end up doing some sort of irreversible damage to it, and most of the time I have no idea that I even did it. I got the itch to try to "clean up" our computer, make it run a little faster. Did the defrag, streamlined a few other areas of the hard drive, then I came across a "system restoration" icon. Interesting. Read the tutorial and it said that by doing the restoration, and returning the system back to the settings you had at a previous date that you wouldn't lose any newly saved information, and hey, I might fix all the things I have screwed up since then. So, I tried it out. It was simple enough. Not sure if I'm any better off though.

I have had some of my non-Christian (and to tell you the truth, Christian) friends tell me that what we are doing is "admirable." I'm never sure what to do with that other than to say, "that isn't the reason why we are doing it. If it were up to me, I would sit around eating Dorritos and watching football. It's got to be about God." Al Gore bringing our attention to global warming, now that is admirable. Some teacher toiling in a classroom for 30 years, now that is admirable. The focus of what we are doing should never be admiration because this isn't about us! This story isn't about us, and as my pastor said today in his message, "We aren't even the lead character in our story." It is about doing what God has called us to for His glory not for others to admire what we are doing. On an even greater level, it is about being obedient. If this was just about doing something admirable, we would run in circles trying to do things on our own that we can only do through Christ. I came across an insight today about this very thing: Obedience results from a relationship with God, but obedience will never create or earn that relationship. Doing something that is admirable seems so small to what our God can (and wants) to do through us.

The apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:9-10 says: Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

God, before time began, already laid out his plans for us. He already gave us a job. How silly would it be for me to take credit for it? How narrow would it look if I sought admiration from others when God already "planned for us long ago." How do I know that sitting on the couch eating Dorritos can not be for me?: because He has redeemed me. He has brought me out of the muck and mire, He has erased my sins through the blood of His Son Christ Jesus! Paul writes in Ephesians 1:7 "In Him we have redemption through his blood." Or in other words, in Him we have a "system restoration" we have been reset, we have been made whole again. Obedience is what should overflow out of that restoration. It is just the small role I play in His story. In the shadow of the Cross, how silly would it look if my goal was to get the admiration of the people around me, especially if, without Christ, I would still have system failure and "fatal errors."