Get Back Up Again

My little girl has officially been a walker for a couple of weeks.  While she gets around very well, she still falls a lot!  Whether it is the pile of toys she thinks she can bulldoze through, an invisible bump in the floor, those annoying shoes her mommy puts on her, or just uncoordinated limbs and an awkward center of gravity, something sends her landing with a thud on that diaper clad bottom.

And as long as she's well fed, not over tired, and the bang of the head on the hardwood floor wasn't loud enough to be heard in the next room, she typically just jumps back up again and is on her way.

I know this is not a big stretch but a 13 month old learning how to walk closely resembles us as sinners learning how to live for God.

We typically can get around pretty well, but we still fall down a lot.  I fall when I choose to judge someone or gossip, when I get angry and say something sarcastic to my husband, when I ignore the nudges of God and don't obey, when I am prideful.  The Bible calls this sin and says that none of us are immune from it.

Romans 3:23 says, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

It is important to not ignore the fact of sin, but this blog is actually meant to be more about the getting back up again.  Like I said, most of the time our little walker doesn't sit and wallow in her fall.  She jumps up, shrugs it off, and forgets it ever happened.  This is actually what caught my attention and reminded me of God's grace.

Romans 3:24 & 25a (New Living Translation) says, "²⁴ Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. ²⁵ For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood."

And Romans 8:1 says, "So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus."

God offers a way for us to receive forgiveness for our sins.  We can accept that Jesus paid the penalty for them when he was sacrificed on the cross.  Our responsibility then is to repent, ask forgiveness and commit with the help of God to sin no more.

God doesn't want us to sit and wallow in our sin, no matter how terrible we think it is.  He wants us to get back up again and keep moving forward.

This reminded me of the lyrics of a song by TobyMac.  You can listen to the song and read the lyrics below.