"We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment."
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
I am very thankful for this. When I say I am nothing without Christ, it's not just a trite bit of Christian phraseology designed to prop up a sense of our neediness for Christ--because I can't seem to grasp any assurance that my life and what I am working at right now is going anywhere worthwhile apart from him.
I'm honestly too busy to post anything else, but since this is what's really going on I figure it counts.
But now, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.
A while back I was reading through some of Spurgeon's sermons and got to some sections where he would say things like "You may think yourselves unworthy, such a wretched creature lost in sin."
And I almost expected what I would have heard from a modern Southern Baptist preacher, something along the lines of being loved and feeling good about yourself, instead he would continue with "All these are true and you don't even know the part of it. You are far worse off than you know." Yet Christ has redeemed you (in the full sense of the word he has bought you) and has taken all of your transgressions upon Himself.
If God does not then condemn me, who am I to condemn myself? That is such a relief and a joy to me.
"Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death."
Psalm 40, and God has "taken thought" for us long before we needed it in Christ. I'm thankful that one of the spiritual blessings, Ephesians 1, is the strength to overcome temptation--though I don't fight that way nearly often enough.
Hope to see you sometime this week! :o)
Here is a quote from St. Frances de Chantal:
"Our Lord wills to give His paradise to poor, lowly, abject and wretched souls who desire to love Him."
I keep that one posted on the bathroom mirror.