Great and wondrous God, come dwell within us. For we cannot dwell with thee. We wish to come to you and enjoy your presence, but our filth puts up a wall between us and you. Would you please, this day, cleanse us and shower your mercy upon our hearts that we may not walk in unrighteousness, but turn away from our evil. May strength come to the body of Christ. We do not ask for easier lives, we ask for more strength to bear the predestined sufferings you have for each of us. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control be abundant in the Christ representatives. You are deserving of all glory and honor, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Every day, without fail, I come before God hating myself. I come before God with a broken heart because of the ways I wish to serve him and the ways I wish to worship him, and the ways I wish to pray to him, and the ways I wish to praise him, and never have my actions lived up to my expectations. I am constantly in a devastating battle of repent, turn away for a while, fall again. I strive for perfection but cannot attain it. Much as Paul talks of in Romans 7.
When I come before God with these thoughts of myself and the knowledge of the ways I've again failed him, often times, I am speechless. I literally do not have words to express my guilt to a God who is so great and acknowledges a man who is so small. Oh, how I wish I could express in tongues, or heavenly language my sorrows that come from the knowledge of my depravity. Though I still wonder whether even these glorious languages could support what I feel in these times. I do not believe any language could support the hurt a Christian feels when he fails such an almighty God who died for him. With these thoughts come the speculation of whether or not I am worthy of Gods grace. I ask God "why do you choose me, do you see how I fail?" Oh, what a misunderstanding of grace. Grace, by definition is unmerited favor. It is not something earned. Now I ask the question, why does God show us grace?
Many Christians think that God has showed his grace to us simply because he loves us, but it goes so much deeper than that. Yes, God loves us, and died for us because he loved us (John 3:16), but that was not his top priority. God's top priority in showing man grace was not to love on him, it was so that the glory of God may reflect off of the grace given to man onto God once again. Jesus died because he loved us, so that God would be glorified. The statement doesn't end at "Jesus died because he loved us". Man is a recipient of God's grace because the grace of God upon man glorifies God.
If it was true that God chose to glorify man by dying for him, what glory does that give to man? If you are told by your parents you will be burnt by a hot coal if you steel anything, and you steel something, and then your parents burn themselves with the coal because they love you, how does that glorify you? It glorifies the parents mercy, grace, and love for their child. And if anything, the Child will feel guilt and come to repentance when they see such love.
We know God is Lord because he doesn't judge according to what we do, but according to what he wills. The grace of God is given to man so that God's glory, love, patience, righteousness and more may be shown to the universe and the universe may in return praise the God who has shown such unmerited favor. We have not received mercy because we earned, we receive mercy because God has chosen us to be vessels by which he is glorified. What a pleasure! God chose to use mankind as vessels to show his love and kindness to all of creation. It is not for our sake, but for Gods. Thank you God! This realization is meant to alone lead to praise, worship, and continual repentance of our sins to the God who has chosen to love us and show his glory through us.
"And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I deal with you for my name's sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God." - Ezekiel 20:44
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